page_title: Utagawa Kunimasu
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Utagawa Kunimasu / Work
caption_attribution_description: English: Bust portrait of Actor Kataoka Ichizō I by Gochōtei Sadamasu II
context_page_description: Utagawa Kunimasu was a designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints in Osaka who was active during the late Edo period. He was a leading producer of kamigata-e, prints from the Osaka and Kyoto areas. He is also known as Sadamasu [貞升], the artist name he used prior to Kunimasu.
context_section_description: Kunimasu's earliest known print is a banzuke theatre playbill dating to early 1830. Signed "eshi Utagawa Sadamasu ga" [絵師　歌川　貞升　画], the print was almost certainly produced while he was in Edo studying under Utagawa Kunisada. Kunimasu has been described as an "influential" figure on the Osaka art scene, one of his greatest achievements being the popularization of the chūban format. Kunimasu began experimenting with close-up actor portraits in this size in 1840, not long before the Tenpō Reforms were to disrupt yakusha-e production. He encouraged his student and fellow pupil of Kunisada, Hirosada, to follow suit. With the repeal of the Tenpō Reforms in the spring of 1847, Hirosada was to pioneer a revival of the chūban portrait format, likely through the financial support of Kunimasu.
  Critics tend to admire Kunimasu's "sense of colour and... fine palette dominated by intense colours with subtle contrasts," as well as the "bold directness" of his lines. In addition, he is credited with employing "tour-de-force techniques" such as "sumptuously printed... metallic pigments, embossing, burnishing, [and] overprinting."
  The majority of Kunimasu's works belong to the yakusha-e genre, being portraits of actors from the local kabuki theatre world. This is a common feature of artists from the Kamigata region, where the vast majority of artists were not professionals, but "talented kabuki fans." Kunimasu in particular is credited with "expressing the psychology of stage performance through powerful and varied physiognomies and vivid or unusual placements of the figures in his compositions."
  In 1852, Kunimasu and his student Hirosada visited Edo, where they joined with other pupils of Kunisada in creating background designs for a series of half-length actor portraits. Soon after returning to Kamigata, Kunimasu turned his back on ukiyo-e and took up painting. He ended his artistic career producing paintings in the style of the Shijō school, known for its blending of Japanese tradition with Western realism.
caption: Portrait of Kataoka Ichizō I by Sadamasu/ Kunimasu. Print in Royal Ontario Museum
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