Kitagawa Utamaro was a renowned Japanese ukiyo-e artist, celebrated for his exquisite woodblock prints depicting beautiful women. His delicate lines, subtle colour palettes, and innovative compositions greatly influenced both Japanese art and later Western impressionist painters.
Kitagawa Utamaro was a renowned Japanese ukiyo-e artist, celebrated for his exquisite woodblock prints depicting beautiful women. His delicate lines, subtle colour palettes, and innovative compositions greatly influenced both Japanese art and later Western impressionist painters.
This download features 41 hi-res images, in JPEG format, by the Japanese artist Kitagawa Utamaro.
The images are all 600dpi and range in size from 3216 pixels wide/tall to 6064 pixels wide/tall.
The pictures are out of copyright and in the public domain, so you are free to use them in whatever way you’d like, including commercial use.
Kitagawa Utamaro (c.1753-1806)was a Japanese artist. He is one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, and is best known for his bijin ōkubi-e, or "large-headed pictures of beautiful women," of the 1790s. He also produced nature studies, particularly illustrated books of insects.
Little is known of Utamaro's life. His work began to appear in the 1770s, and he rose to prominence in the early 1790s with his portraits of beauties with exaggerated, elongated features. He produced over 2000 known prints and was one of the few Ukiyo-e artists to achieve fame throughout Japan in his lifetime. In 1804, he was arrested and manacled for fifty days for making illegal prints depicting the 16th-century military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and died two years later.
Utamaro's work reached Europe in the mid-nineteenth century, where it was very popular, enjoying particular acclaim in France. He influenced the European Impressionists, particularly with his use of partial views and his emphasis on light and shade, which they imitated. The reference to the "Japanese influence" among these artists often refers to the work of Utamaro.
The pictures in our collections are out of copyright in the United States, the UK, Canada, most of Europe, Australia and all countries that follow the lifetime plus 70 years rule. Read our blog post about public domain copyright rules for more information.
