Japanese Artists by Era: A Collector's Directory

A working directory of Japanese artists, arranged by the era in which their work first mattered. It is a starting point rather than an encyclopaedia: the names here are the ones collectors meet most often, in painting, prints, ceramics, lacquer, sculpture and photography. Artists of the Edo period to the Second World War are named in Japanese order, family name first, as they appear in catalogues and on boxes; post-war artists are named as they are usually written in English. Dates are birth and death years.

Edo period (1603–1868)

• Hon'ami Kōetsu (1558–1637): calligrapher, potter and lacquer designer, co-founder of the Rinpa aesthetic.
• Tawaraya Sōtatsu (active early 17th century): Rinpa painter of gold-ground screens; the Wind God and Thunder God screens.
• Nonomura Ninsei (17th century): Kyoto potter whose enamelled tea wares defined Kyō-yaki.
• Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716) and Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743): brothers in painting and ceramics; Rinpa at its most decorative.
• Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800): Kyoto painter of astonishingly detailed birds, flowers and creatures.
• Ike no Taiga (1723–1776) and Yosa Buson (1716–1784): masters of the literati (nanga) style.
• Soga Shōhaku (1730–1781): eccentric, explosive ink painting.
• Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795): founder of the naturalistic Maruyama school.
• Kitagawa Utamaro (c. 1753–1806): woodblock portraits of women.
• Tōshūsai Sharaku (active 1794–1795): kabuki actor prints made in a single ten-month burst.
• Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849): Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji and a lifetime of drawing.
• Sakai Hōitsu (1761–1828): revived Rinpa in Edo.
• Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858): landscape prints, including The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō.
• Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861): warriors, monsters and cats in print.

Meiji era (1868–1912)

• Shibata Zeshin (1807–1891): lacquer artist and painter of rare wit.
• Takahashi Yuichi (1828–1894): pioneer of Western-style oil painting (yōga).
• Kanō Hōgai (1828–1888): bridged Kanō painting and modern nihonga.
• Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889): virtuoso painter of demons, satire and spirited ink.
• Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839–1892): the last great master of ukiyo-e; One Hundred Aspects of the Moon.
• Miyagawa Kōzan (1842–1916): Makuzu ware, with sculpted high-relief ceramics and later fine porcelain.
• Namikawa Yasuyuki (1845–1927): Kyoto cloisonné of jewel-like precision.
• Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847–1915): prints of a modernising Tokyo by gaslight.
• Kuroda Seiki (1866–1924): brought plein-air oil painting home from Paris.
• Yokoyama Taikan (1868–1958) and Hishida Shunsō (1874–1911): founders of modern nihonga.

Taishō era (1912–1926)

• Takeuchi Seihō (1864–1942): Kyoto nihonga painter of animals.
• Uemura Shōen (1875–1949): bijinga of rare dignity; the first woman awarded the Order of Culture.
• Yoshida Hiroshi (1876–1950): landscape woodblocks he designed, supervised and published himself.
• Hashiguchi Goyō (1880–1921): a small, prized body of shin-hanga beauties.
• Kawase Hasui (1883–1957): shin-hanga landscapes of snow, rain and dusk.
• Takehisa Yumeji (1884–1934): illustrator of Taishō romance and design.
• Foujita Tsuguharu (1886–1968): Paris-based painter of milky-white nudes and cats.
• Kishida Ryūsei (1891–1929): portraits of his daughter Reiko.
• Itō Shinsui (1898–1972): shin-hanga portraits of women.

Shōwa era, before 1945

• Kitaōji Rosanjin (1883–1959): potter, calligrapher and gastronome.
• Kawai Kanjirō (1890–1966) and Hamada Shōji (1894–1978): potters at the heart of the mingei folk-craft movement.
• Onchi Kōshirō (1891–1955): father of abstract sōsaku-hanga, the creative print.
• Munakata Shikō (1903–1975): bold, devotional woodblocks carved at speed.

Shōwa era, after 1945

• Jirō Yoshihara (1905–1972), Kazuo Shiraga (1924–2008) and Atsuko Tanaka (1932–2005): Gutai.
• Kaii Higashiyama (1908–1999): serene nihonga landscapes.
• Tarō Okamoto (1911–1996): the Tower of the Sun and post-war avant-garde.
• Yayoi Kusama (born 1929): infinity nets, polka dots and mirrored rooms.
• Ikuo Hirayama (1930–2009): Silk Road subjects in nihonga.
• On Kawara (1932–2014): conceptual date paintings.
• Lee Ufan (born 1936) and Nobuo Sekine (1942–2019): Mono-ha.
• Tadanori Yokoo (born 1936) and Keiichi Tanaami (1936–2024): psychedelic graphics and pop.
• Daidō Moriyama (born 1938) and Nobuyoshi Araki (born 1940): photography.
• Hajime Sorayama (born 1947): chrome-bodied robots and super-realist illustration.
• Hiroshi Nagai (born 1947): sunlit pools and city-pop album art.
• Hiroshi Sugimoto (born 1948): seascapes, theatres and long-exposure photography.

Heisei era (1989–2019)

• Tatsuo Miyajima (born 1957): LED counters and the measure of time.
• Hiroshi Senju (born 1958): waterfalls in natural pigment.
• Yoshitomo Nara (born 1959): defiant children and dogs.
• Takashi Murakami (born 1962): Superflat and the studio Kaikai Kiki.
• Makoto Aida (born 1965): satire across every medium.
• Akira Yamaguchi (born 1969): contemporary life drawn in the manner of old screens.
• Mr. (born 1969) and Chiho Aoshima (born 1974): Kaikai Kiki artists.
• Chiharu Shiota (born 1972): thread installations; represented Japan at Venice in 2015.
• Mika Ninagawa (born 1972): saturated photography and film.
• Kohei Nawa (born 1975): PixCell sculptures and their glass skins.
• teamLab (founded 2001): immersive digital installations.

Reiwa era (2019– )

• Yuko Mohri (born 1980): kinetic installations from found objects; represented Japan at Venice in 2024.
• Koki Tanaka (born 1975): collective actions and social experiments.
• Tomoko Kōnoike (born 1960): myth, animals and hand-made worlds.

The present is still being written. Our page on upcoming Japanese artists follows names we are watching.

Related reading

• Japanese Contemporary Art: A Collector's Primer
• Shin-hanga Woodblock Prints: Hasui, Yoshida and the Seals That Date Them
• Ukiyo-e: Woodblock Prints and the Floating World
• Japanese Paintings and Art
• Authenticating Japanese Art and Collections