Shinsui Itō

Shinsui Itō (1898–1972) was a Japanese painter and printmaker known for idealized portraits of women and his role in the shin-hanga movement.

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Twelve Figures of New Beauties: A series of woodblock prints by Shinsui Itō depicting women in contemporary dress and settings. This series makes his changing, modern subjects especially visible.
Shin-hanga: A Japanese woodblock-print movement that renewed ukiyo-e subjects and techniques for modern audiences. Itō's career became one of the movement's defining artistic examples.
Kaburagi Kiyokata: A Japanese painter and teacher associated with the nihonga style and depictions of contemporary life. Kiyokata taught Itō and helped establish his early artistic direction.
Mokuhanga: The Japanese method of printing from carved wooden blocks using water-based pigments. Itō's prints helped sustain this craft within twentieth-century Japanese art.
Eight Views of Ōmi: A series of landscape prints by Shinsui Itō based on the traditional Eight Views of Ōmi theme. It shows his printmaking beyond the bijin-ga portraits for which he is best known.
Woodblock printing: A relief-printing process in which carved blocks transfer ink or pigment to paper. His prints translated painted designs into carefully registered impressions.
Nihonga: A modern Japanese painting movement that developed through traditional materials and techniques. Itō's painting practice grew within this modern renewal of Japanese-style painting.
Japanese art market: The network of dealers, publishers, collectors, and institutions that buy and circulate Japanese art. Watanabe's publishing connected Itō's work to local and overseas collectors.
The First Day of Spring: A bijin-ga woodblock print by Shinsui Itō depicting a woman in a seasonal setting. Its composed figure and atmosphere exemplify his portrait style.
Watanabe Shōzaburō: A Tokyo publisher who promoted shin-hanga prints and coordinated artists, carvers, and printers. Watanabe published many of Itō's best-known prints.