Tsuchiya Koitsu

1870 - 1949

Born in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan, he was born with the name of either Koichi or Sahei.

At the age of 15 he moved to Tokyo, where he served as a woodblock carver apprentice under the carver Matsuzaki, but soon became a student of ukiyo-e master Kiyochika Kobashi, where he lived and worked for 19 years.

His initial prints depicted scenes during the Sino-Japanese war, but afterwards he focussed on Shin Hanga landscape prints, and became a leading member of the shin hanga movement.

There is a great deal of research available on-line that covers the work of Tsuchiya Koitsu - I have found the work of Dr Ross Walker and his book “Catalogue Raisonne of Tsuchiya Koitsu” and on-line data base Koitsu raisonne invaluable in learning more about Koitsu’s work. You can fund the database here: http://www.koitsu.com/DB/koitsu.asp .

I have included the catalogue numbers of the Koitsu prints in my collection for reference.