- Also known as
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Torii Kotondo (Torii Kiyotada V 五代目鳥居清忠)
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primary name: Torii Kotondo
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other name: Saito Akira
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other name: Torii Kiyokoto
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other name: Torii Kiyotada V
- Details
- individual; painter/draughtsman; printmaker; Japanese; Male
- Life dates
- 1900-1976
- Biography
- Print artist. Kotondo was born in Tokyo as Saito Akira, and adopted at the age of fifteen by Torii Kiyotada (1875-1941), fourth generation to use the name Kiyotada and the seventh to use that of Torii, an artist of a line of painters and designers for the Tokyo Kabuki Theatre. He studied native-style painting (Nihonga) notably from 1917 under the influential Kaburaki Kiyokata (1878-1973) who also taught Shinsui, Kasamatsu and Hasui. Apart from designs for the kabuki magazine 'Engei gaho' and Kabuki scenery, programmes and posters, he painted 'bijinga' (portraits of beautiful women). This side of his work was taken up by the publishers Sakai/Kawaguchi who issued most of his small output of woodblock prints on that subject, which was largely restricted to the years 1927 to about 1935. His prints appealed strongly to Westerners and were shown in both Toledo Exhibitions (1930 and 1936). Around 1935 he changed his art name to Kiyokoto. On his father's death in 1941 he became Torii VIII and Kiyotada V.
- Bibliography
- Smith, Lawrence, 'Modern Japanese Prints 1912-1989: Woodblocks and Stencils', BMP, London, 1994, pp. 36-7 and no. 41.
Merritt, Helen, 'Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints: The Early Years', University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1990, pp. 81-4.
Merritt, Helen, and Yamada, Nanako, 'Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints 1900-1975', University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1992, p. 155.
Blair, Dorothy, 'Modern Japanese Prints: Woodblock Prints by Ten Artists: The work of the past five years', Toledo Museum of Art, 1936, nos 131-43.
'Kabuki jiten', eds Hattori, Yukio; Tomita, Tetsunosuke; and Hiro, Sueyasu, Heibonsha, Tokyo, 1983, p. 296.
Kato, Junzo (ed.), 'Kindai Nihon hanga taikei', III, Mainichi Shinbun, Tokyo, 1975, nos 107-14 (good colour reproductions of his female portraits).
Stephens, Amy Reigle (ed.), 'The New Wave: 20th Century Japanese Prints from the Robert V. Muller Collection', London and Leiden, 1993, pp. 198-203.
