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Two drunken lovers; the woman attempting to prevent the man from rising

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Two drunken lovers; the woman attempting to prevent the man from rising

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Utamaro was born in 1753 in Edo (Tokyo) and died in 1806. He is considered the leading Japanese printmaker and painter of bijin. Utamaro started his career as a student of the master painter Toriyama Sekien. Utamaro's early known artworks are ukiyo-e prints for the kabuki theater published under the name of Utagawa Toyoaki.

Since 1791 Utamaro concentrated on woman portraits. His models were from pleasure-district Yoshiwara. His women are idealized with extremely tall and slender bodies. The necks, heads, faces, and noses are elongated.

In 1804 Utamaro got into trouble for violation of censorship laws. His historic print depicted the ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi with his wife and five concubines. This was considered an offense against the Tokugawa family. The arrest had a devastating impact and he fell into depressions. Utamaro Kitagawa died on October 31, 1806, two years after the arrest. He was 53 years old.

Utamaro Kitagawa is the most famous ukiyo-e artist of the late eighteenth century.

Charles Stewart Smith (1832-1909) was an art collector and businessman. As a businessman, Smith was a president, and director of the Associates Land Company, vice president and director of the City and Suburban Homes Company, treasurer and director of the Woodlawn Cemetery, trustee of Barnard College and director of the Fifth Avenue Bank, German Alliance Insurance Company, Greenwich Savings Bank, and Fourth National Bank. He was a member of the Union League, Lawyers, Players, Century, and Merchants Club. As an art collector, Smith was a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Vice President of the Society of Art Collectors (558 Fifth Avenue, New York). In 1892, while traveling in Japan on his honeymoon with his third wife, he purchased several thousand Japanese prints, ceramics, and paintings from the British military man, journalist, author and collector Captain Frank Brinkley (1841-1912). In 1901 Smith donated 1,763 Japanese woodcut prints to the New York Public Library and the rest to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among these color woodcuts is a celebrated group of prints by Kitagawa Utamaro, as well as examples of the work of Harunobu, Koryusai, Sharaku, and Hokusai.

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Date

1796 - 1796
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Source

New York Public Library
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Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication ("CCO 1.0 Dedication")

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