Koizumi Kishio

Koizumi Kishio was born in Shizuoka June 23, 1893 as the third son of Koizumi Ken'kichi, a master calligrapher who had served the Tokugawa Shogunate.The young Koizumi relocated to Tokyo in 1909 where for three years (1909-1912) he studied Western-style watercolor techniques.Koizumi learned the craft of cutting blocks from his father's block-carver, Horikoshi Kan'ichiro, beginning in 1912. He did sosaku hanga, self prints.Koizumi is best known for his great series Showa dai Tokyo hyaku zue - One Hundred Views of Great Tokyo in the Showa Era, which he carved and printed himself between 1928 and 1940. Prints from this series make up most of this volume.Around 1940, two other ideas for series formed in Koizumi's mind - twelve scenes of Nikko National Park, one for each month of the year, and thirty-six views of Mt Fuji.Due to Allied bombing of Tokyo Koizumi Kishio relocated to his in-laws' home in Saitama (north of Tokyo) in 1945, where he died on December 7th.