Artist – Tsukioka YOSHITOSHI (月岡 芳年) later named Taiso YOSHITOSHI (大蘇 芳年) (1839 - 1892) was a Japanese woodblock artist and  a 4th generation Member of the Utagawa school.

YOSHITOSHI's work extended from the last years of feudal Japan to the first years of modern Japan. Like many other Japanese, he was interested in things and developments from the rest of the world, but over time he was increasingly concerned about the loss of Japanese traditions, including the classic color woodcut.

While himself working in a traditional way, Japan took over the methods of mass reproduction, such as photography and lithography, used in the West. In the course of his career, Yoshitoshi succeeded in lifting the traditional Japanese color woodcut to a new level almost at the beginning of his career, before actually ending with him. He is supposed the last Gandmaster of Ukiyo-e.
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At the age of five, he became interested in art and started to take lessons from his uncle. In 1850, when he was 11 years old, Yoshitoshi was apprenticed to Kuniyoshi. Kuniyoshi gave his apprentice the ga-name "YOSHITOSHI", denoting lineage in the Utagawa School. Although he was not seen as Kuniyoshi's successor during his lifetime, he is now recognized as the most important pupil of Kuniyoshi.

During his training, YOSHITOSHI concentrated on refining his draftsmanship skills and copying his mentor’s sketches. Kuniyoshi emphasized drawing from real life, which was unusual in Japanese training because the artist’s goal was to capture the subject matter rather than making a literal interpretation of it. YOSHITOSHI also learned the elements of western drawing techniques and perspective through studying Kuniyoshi’s collection of foreign prints and engravings.

YOSHITOSHI's first print appeared in 1853, but nothing else appeared for many years, perhaps as a result of the illness of his master Kuniyoshi during his last years. Although his life was hard after Kuniyoshi's death in 1861, he did manage to produce some work, 44 prints of his being known from 1862. In the next two years he had sixty-three of his designs, mostly kabuki prints, published. He also contributed designs to the 1863 Tokaido series by Utagawa School artists organized under the auspices of Kunisada.

Many of YOSHITOSHI's prints of the 1860s are depictions of graphic violence and death. These themes were partly inspired by the death of YOSHITOSHI's father in 1863 and by the lawlessness and violence of the Japan surrounding him, which was simultaneously experiencing the breakdown of the feudal system imposed by the Tokugawa shogunate, as well as the effect of contact with Westerners. In late 1863, YOSHITOSHI began making violent sketches, eventually incorporated into battle prints designed in a bloody and extravagant style. The public enjoyed these prints and Yoshitoshi began to move up in the ranks of ukiyo-e artists in Edo. With the country at war, YOSHITOSHI’s images allowed those who were not directly involved in the fighting to experience it vicariously through his designs. The public was attracted to YOSHITOSHI’s work not only for his superior composition and draftsmanship, but also his passion and intense involvement with his subject matter. Besides the demands of woodblock print publishers and consumers, YOSHITOSHI was also trying to exorcise the demons of horror that he and his fellow countrymen were experiencing.

YOSHITOSHI's notorious, yet compelling, often macabre work is iconic in its own right. An 1885 issue of the art and fashion magazine "Tokyo Hayari Hosomiki" ranked Yoshitoshi as the number-one ukiyo-e artist, ahead of his Meiji contemporaries such as Toyohara Kunichika, and  his fellow student, enemy and rival Utagawa Yoshiiku. Thus he had achieved great popularity and critical acclaim.


Personal life -  YOSHITOSHI was born in the Shimbashi district of old Edo, in 1839. His original name was Owariya Yonejiro. His father was a wealthy merchant who had bought his way into samurai status. At the age of three years, his father changed partners, and YOSHITOSHI was given to live with his uncle, a pharmacist with no son. He was apprenticed to Kuniyoshi's studio in 1850. After Kuniyoshi's death in 1861he started his own business.

By 1871, YOSHITOSHI became severely depressed, and his personal life became one of great turmoil, which was to continue sporadically until his death. He lived in appalling conditions with his devoted mistress, Okoto, who sold off her clothes and possessions to support him. At one point they were reduced to burning the floor-boards from the house for warmth. It is said that in 1872 he suffered a complete mental breakdown after being shocked by the lack of popularity of his recent designs. YOSHITOSHI's financial condition was still precarious, however, and in 1876, his mistress Okoto, in a gesture of devotion, sold herself to a brothel to help him.

In late 1877, he took up with a new mistress, the geisha Oraku. Like Okoto, she sold her clothes and possessions to support him, and when they separated after a year, she too hired herself out to a brothel. YOSHITOSHI's works gave him more public recognition, in 1882 his financial situation improved, when he was hired by a publishing house.

In 1880, YOSHITOSHI met another woman, a former geisha with two children, Sakamaki Taiko. They were married in 1884, and while he continued to philander, her gentle and patient temperament seems to have helped stabilize his behaviors. He now owned a large house and taught many students. One of Taiko's children, adopted as a son, became YOSHITOSHI's student, and was thence known as Tsukioka Kōgyo (月岡 耕漁, 1869 – 1927).

In his last years, his mental problems started to recur. In early 1891 he invited friends to a gathering of artists that did not actually exist, but rather turned out to be a delusion. His physical condition also deteriorated, and his misfortune was compounded when all of his money was stolen in a robbery of his home. After more symptoms, he was admitted to a mental hospital. He eventually left in May 1892, but did not return home, instead renting rooms.

He died three weeks later at the age of 53, on June 9th in 1892 from cerebral hemorrhage. A stone memorial monument to YOSHITOSHI was built in Higashi-okubo, Tokyo, in 1898.


Aliases - YOSHITOSHI's civil name was Owariya Yonejiro. His ga-names were Tsukioka YOSHITOSHI (月岡 芳年), and since 1873, Taiso YOSHITOSHI (大蘇 芳年) as well as Ikkai YOSHITOSHI (一魁芳年), Kaisai Yoshitoshi (魁斎芳年), and Ikkaisai Yoshitoshi (一魁斎芳年) on several occasions.


Disciples - Known disciples include his adopted son Tsukioka Kōgyo (月岡 耕漁, 1869 – 1927), and notable pupils such as Toshikata Mizuno (水野年方, 1866-1908), Toshihide Migita (右田年英, 1862 - 1925).