Suzuki Harunobu

Suzuki Harunobu (c. 1725–1770) was one of the great innovators of Japanese woodblock printing, working in Edo during the mid-eighteenth century. In 1765 he produced the first true nishiki-e, or full-color 'brocade' prints, made for a circle of literati and samurai patrons who commissioned elaborate calendar prints (e-goyomi); the wealth of these patrons allowed him to use fine cherry-wood blocks and up to ten separate colors on a single sheet, a technical leap beyond the two- and three-color prints of earlier decades.