Home‎ > ‎Artists‎ > ‎

Narazaki Eishō (1864-1936)

Prints in Collection


Inside Asakusa Kannon Temple, 1932
IHL Cat. #230A and 230

Biographical Data

Biography

Narazaki Eishō 楢崎 栄昭  (1864-1936)
Source: Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: 1900-1975, Helen Merritt and Nanako Yamada, University of Hawaii Press,1992, p. 107; Japanese Wood-block Prints, Shizuya Fujikake, Japan Travel Bureau, 1938, p. 94;Georgetown University website http://library.georgetown.edu/dept/speccoll/guac/japan_04/illustrations.htm
His given name is also seen written in English as Yeishō [榮昌]. He used the art names Fuyō 扶陽 (1916-1922) and Eishō (1922-1936). He learned the art of woodblock printing from Kobayashi Eitaku (1843-1890) and while working at the Printing Bureau of the Ministry of Finance in Tokyo, he learned copperplate printing from the Director, the Italian artist Eduardo Chiossone (1833-1898).1

In 1916 he began making prints for a foreign clientele under the pseudonym of Fuyō.  In 1922 he assumed the name Eishō and set to work producing artistic prints.2  Later, he was among the artists who worked for the publisher Watanabe Shozaburo (1885-1962) in shin hanga style. Woodblocks by Eishō published by Watanabe include Inside Asakusa Kannon Temple (his best-known work), New Diet Building, Meiji Shrine, and Rissekiho Beach, Korea

1 Japan hired thousands of Western scientists, technicians and artists during the Meiji period.  For the art sector, the Italians hadan influential role in teaching Western arts in Japan.
2 While Fujikake Shizuya in Japanese Wood-block Prints writes that the artist assumed the name Narazaki Eishō in 1922, the publisher Watanabe maintains that he did not assume that name until 1932.