Onoe Kikugorö in the Role of Kanpei

Catalog note / 解説

Natori Shunsen was born in Yamanashi Prefecture in Japan and lived there until the entire family moved to Tokyo when he was a child. When he was eleven, Shunsen began his artistic training with Kyoto-born Nihonga painter Kubota Beisen (1852-1906). In 1909, he was hired by Tokyo Asahi Newspaper as an illustrator for the paper’s literary supplement. Shunsen also began to exhibit his paintings publicly. In 1916, one of his paintings, The Actor Nakamura Ganjirö as Kamiya Jihei, was shown in the Exhibition of Theatrical Pictures at a gallery in Tokyo. The famous publisher Watanabe Shözaburö was greatly impressed by Shunsen’s artistic abilities, and later collaborated with the artist to create a…