1000 Museums

Japanese printmaker Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, also known as Taiso Yoshitoshi, was born on April 30th, 1839, in the Shimbashi district of Edo (modern-day Tokyo). Yoshitoshi is widely known as one of the last masters and innovators of Japanese woodblock prints during the end of the Edo and early Meiji periods. He sought to preserve traditional Japanese art forms during the time of Japan’s embrace of Western culture’s modernity and mass production. Yoshitoshi worked with a genre of prints popular from the 17th to the 19th century called ukiyo-e, primarily depicting Kabuki actors, courtesans, famous vistas, and landscapes. He also enjoyed the supernatural, creating some of his best works depicting ghosts and monsters.