Utagawa kunisada biography of abraham

This licensed ferry service provided the family with a measure of financial security that Kunisada was able to access during his early years of printmaking apprenticeship. Distributed as a New Year's gift, it was not a commercial production, although it was later sold as such in a trade edition in These early bijinga were somewhat immature and suffered in comparison to his designs in this genre even just two years later in He would continue to design for ehon throughout his career, providing huge numbers of images for actor-print books and illustrated popular fiction.

Even early on, he was prodigiously creative in this genre, as in when he contributed to no fewer then fourteen ehon. By the s Kunisada was involved in designing more than fifty series of beauties and actors, as well as a few warrior prints.

Utagawa kunisada biography of abraham: He was born Ignace Henri Jean

It was during the second decade of the nineteenth century that Kunisada established his teaching studio. By his students were already designing their own book illustrations for publication. It has been estimated that as many as 15, to 20, print designs were issued from his studio, as well as thousands of illustrations for woodblock-printed books ehon.

Given that some of these single-sheet prints and ehon were issued in thousands of impressions, the number of actual printed sheets sold by the various publishers over Kunisada's long career must have been astounding. Little wonder that his prints are among the most frequently encountered in collections around the world. Kunisada enjoyed enormous commercial success once he established his studio, whose production of Utagawa-school woodcuts dominated the world of ukiyo-e prints from the s into the beginning of the Meiji era.