Tomioka eisen biography templates

Tomioka Eisen was a typical woodblock artist of the late Meiji era. The commercial basis of traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking had nearly ceased to exist.

Tomioka eisen biography templates free

The few remaining artists were forced to make a living as book and newspaper illustrators and designers of kuchi-e - woodblock prints that were inserted in books and magazines.

Biography: Eisen Tomioka

Eisen Tomioka was born on April 28, 1864, in Nagano Prefecture, with the given name of Hidetaro.

He moved to Tokyo with the intention of becoming a full-time artist. Initially, he took a position as a civilian employee with the Japanese army to support himself.

Tomioka eisen biography templates

Later, he resigned from this position to study art with Kobayashi Eitaku. He worked as an illustrator. During the late Meiji period, publishers of newspapers, journals, and books used to sell their products with supplements of woodblock prints.

These prints are called kuchi-e and were created using traditional Japanese woodblock