The Lineage of Hokusai’s Beauties—Rivalry Among Masters
Tue, September 16, 2025 - Mon, November 24, 2025
Today, Hokusai is famous for his landscape paintings, including Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, but his paintings of beautiful women were also well-recognized, to the point that he was featured as a master of the painting of beauties in the humorous book “Taitō Keigo”, published in 1800. This exhibition focuses on Hokusai's roots as a master of the paintings of beautiful women and the evolution of his style.
Katsukawa Shunsho, who was Hokusai’s first master in the world of ukiyo-e, was also a master of the paintings of beautiful women, receiving high praise such as "One painting by Shunsho is worth a thousand gold coins" (1775, humorous book ”Kōhen Fūzoku Tsū”). Hokusai is considered to be part of the orthodox lineage of paintings of beautiful women, which includes Miyagawa Choshun, who specialized in hand-painted paintings and whose style of painting is characterized by its delicate and graceful style, his disciple Miyagawa (Katsumiyagawa) Shunsui, and his disciple Shunsho.
From his apprenticeship period, when he called himself Shunro, Hokusai produced a small number of nishiki-e paintings of beautiful women. Around the time Shunro produced his paintings of beauties, Torii Kiyonaga's healthy paintings of beauties with eight-head body proportions were in fashion, following Isoda Koryusai's depiction of the charms of mature women. Hokusai also produced paintings of beauties influenced by Kiyonaga during his Shunro period.
After he left the Katsukawa school and became the head of the Edo Rinpa school, paintings of simple beauties with oval faces became all the rage as "Sori-style beauties". After he established the Katsushika school under the name Hokusai, in his prime he began to produce voluptuous and glamorous beauties. The reason behind Hokusai's change in style was the popularity of Utamaro's paintings of beautiful women, which led to the popularity of bewitching paintings of beauties.
In this way, Hokusai's paintings of beautiful women changed greatly over the years, and the reason behind this is his close connection to the style of beauties that was popular at the time. This exhibition will trace the evolution of Hokusai's beauty paintings through a lineage of beauty paintings from Miyagawa Choshun to Hokusai, as well as works by ukiyo-e artists of his time who created the fashion for painting of beauties, and will shed light on his appeal and his position in the field of painting of beauties.
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Term
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September 16 - November 24, 2025 tentative
*Some exhibits are changed during the term
1st term: September 16 - October 19, 2025
2nd term: October 22 -, November 24, 2025
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Open
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Tuesday-Sunday
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Closed
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Mondays (if Monday is a holiday, the next weekday is closed.)
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Hours
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9:30 am - 5:30 pm (last admission 5:00 pm)
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Exhibition room
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3rd floor Exhibition Room
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Organizers
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Sumida City, The Sumida Hokusai Museum
Access
Publications
For the Press
