Kitano Tsunetomi was a well known bijin-ga printmaker and painter. His woodblock prints have a painterly quality, and look very similar to the scroll paintings on which they were based. In 1880, he was born in Kanazawa with the name Tomitaro. As a young man, Tsunetomi worked as an apprentice to a woodblock carver after which he became a print carver for the newspaper Hokkoku Shinpo. He later moved to Osaka to study nihon-ga style painting under Inano Toshitsune, a student of Yoshitoshi. In 1901, he began working as an illustrator for the newspaper Osaka Shinbun.
. Beginning in 1910, Tsunetomi began to exhibit paintings in the Bunten shows, and he won a prize in the 5th Bunten (1911) for his bijin-ga painting 'Rain during Sunshine'. He published a folio of four prints in 1918 titled 'Spring and Autumn in the Licensed Quarter' (Kuruwa no shunju). These designs were self-carved and printed. In 1924, Tsunetomi founded an art school and publishing house called Hakuyodo.
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Album / Universal Images Group / Pictures From History