Suzuki Harunobu

1724-1770

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. Harunobu became the leading designer of bijin-ga, images of beautiful women, rendered as slender, almost childlike figures set in poetic, often literary scenes that reworked classical themes in contemporary guise. He also depicted ordinary Edo life—street vendors, errand boys—alongside courtesans and geisha, and produced shunga, though he pointedly avoided images of kabuki actors. His signature use of flat, solid-color backgrounds (tsubushi) and his delicate compositions were widely imitated in his lifetime and after his death in 1770. His prints are held in major museum collections worldwide.