Okumura Masanobu

He is a figure in the formative era of ukiyo-e doing early works on actors and bijin-ga ("pictures of beautiful women").

While Masanobu's early life is largely undocumented, he is believed to have been born about 1686, possibly in Edo (modern Tokyo).

[1] Masanobu appears to have been self-taught painter (though he did study poetry under Tachiba Fukaku); he is not known to have belonged to any artistic school.

These prints, influenced perhaps by 12th-century Toba-e and the caricature paintings of Hanabusa Itchō (1652–1724), depicted humorous scenes from, or parodies of, Noh, kabuki, and Japanese mythology.

About 1721 Masanobu abandoned the publishers of his earlier works and opened his own wholesaler, Okumura-ya, in Tōri Shio-chō in Edo.

These pieces are large-scale and referred to as uki-e. Uki-e is a style used by Japanese artists that means “looming picture”.

[7] The era Masanobu was born into was a prosperous and creatively fertile one, in which flourished the haiku poets Matsuo Bashō and Ihara Saikaku, the bunraku dramatist Chikamatsu Monzaemon, and the painter Ogata Kōrin.

Masanobu was one of the most influential innovators of the ukiyo-e form, introducing the comic album, the pillar, two-colour, and lacquer prints, and popularizing Western-style perspective drawing.

His career saw ukiyo-e evolve from its monochromatic origins to the verge of the full-colour nishiki-e revolution of Suzuki Harunobu's time.

[1] Though less known to the public than masters such as Sharaku and Hokusai, Masanobu has gained the regard of connoisseurs as one of the greatest ukiyo-e artists, held in esteem by Japanese collectors such as Kiyoshi Shibui and Seiichirō Takahashi, and Westerners such as Ernest Fenollosa, Arthur Davison Ficke, and James A.