Utagawa Yoshitora was a designer of ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock prints and an illustrator of books and newspapers who was active from about 1850 to about 1880. He was born in Edo (modern Tokyo), but neither his date of birth nor date of death is known. He was the oldest pupil of Utagawa Kuniyoshi who excelled in prints of warriors, kabuki actors, beautiful women, and foreigners. He may not have seen any of the foreign scenes he depicted.
KD: We don't know when this Utagawa Yoshitora was born. We don't know when he died. Yet, we know the dates of his creations.
- From the 1860s Yoshitora produced Yokohama-e pictures of foreigners amid rapid modernization that came to Japan after the country was opened to trade. He collaborated on a number of landscape series, and in the Meiji period that began in 1868 he also worked in newspapers. The last of his known works appeared in 1882.
- Utagawa Yoshitora - Wikipedia
- Vehicles in Transit in Tokyo - Utagawa Yoshitora
- Vehicles on the Streets of Tokyo 1870
- Library of Congress
KD: We don't know when this Utagawa Yoshitora was born. We don't know when he died. Yet, we know the dates of his creations.
- This particular artist, being Japanese, was not a bi supporter of the flag of Japan. Or so it seems, for I have seen may be one or two resemblances.
- And, of course, them steam cars, and self propelled boats (with no obvious smoke stacks) were normal for the 18-whatever Japan. Industrial Revolution spared no one.
