Artist Ando Hiroshige Biography

Ando Hiroshige (1797-1858) born Ando Tokutaro, was one of the most prominent Japanese painters and woodblock printmaker of Edo (Tokyo). With modest beginnings (1811-1830) in illustrations, portraits and paintings of gorgeous women (bijinga), Ando Hiroshige (安藤 広重) later became famous for his landscape prints. His soft romantic painting style and ability to quickly capture and reproduce the subtleties of everyday Edo-life made him even more famous that the coetaneous Hokusai (1760 - 1849).

Hiroshige (aka: Ichiyusai Hiroshige and Utagawa Hiroshige) was born in a middle-class family, and at first, like his father (Ando Genemon), was a fire-warden. While the details are not clear and lost in the travails of time, It is said that prints of then popular Hokusai enkindled the desire for Hiroshige to paint full-time as a career. He saw an opportunity to further his income with paintings as his low salary as a fire-warden was barely enough. He joined the school of Utagawa Toyohiro, a famous painter of the time and whose name in 1812 he affixed to his own upon graduation of the Utagawa School of Ukiyo-e Arts - Utagawa Hiroshige.

In 1833-1834, he published one of his greatest masterpiece - Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido. This collection of individual prints was an immediate success and made him one of the most sought after woodblock painter of the time. With an increasing demand for landscape prints, the master published "The eight views of Omi" in 1834 and "Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaido" in 1839.

There are over 5000 known artwork with varying levels of quality and craftsmanship under different signatures by the Ukiyo-e master. In 1858, two years after becoming a Buddhist monk, Hiroshige died of a cholera epidemic.