Toriyama Sekien
Utagawa Toyoharu was born in Toyooka in Tajima Province. He studied in Kyoto under of the Kanō school of painting. It may have been around 1763 that he moved to Edo (modern Tokyo), where he studied under Toriyama Sekien. The "Toyo" () in the art name "Toyoharu" () is said to have come from Sekien's personal name "Toyofusa" (). Some sources hold he also studied under Ishikawa Toyonobu and Nishimura Shigenaga. Other art names Toyoharu went under include Ichiryūsai (), Senryūsai (), and Shōjirō (). Tradition holds that the name "Utagawa" derives from Udagawa-chō, where Toyoharu lived in the Shiba district in Edo. His common name was Tajimaya Shōjirō ( ), and he also used the personal names Masaki () and Shin'emon ().