Katsukawa Shunshō

1726-1793

Katsukawa Shunshō (1726–1793) was a painter and printmaker in Edo, and the leading figure of the Katsukawa school of ukiyo-e. Trained under Miyagawa Shunsui, he began as a member of the Torii school before breaking away to found his own style around 1760, becoming known above all for reinventing yakusha-e, prints of Kabuki actors. Where earlier artists relied on generic role-types, Shunshō gave actors individualized, recognizable likenesses, often in large close-up heads or glimpsed backstage in their dressing rooms — an approach he helped establish with Ippitsusai Bunchō in the celebrated fan-print book Ehon Butai Ōgi of 1770. He worked mainly in the hosoe format but also produced triptychs, pentaptychs, and narrow hashira-e prints. Though he made few bijin-ga prints, his paintings of beautiful women, rich in carefully observed dress, architecture and landscape, are considered among the finest of the later eighteenth century. His pupils included Shunchō, Shun'ei, and Hokusai.