Shimura Tatsumi

Born in Takasaki, Gunma. Real name Sentarö. He became an apprecntice of Yamakawa Shühö in 1924. The following year he started as an illustrator for the magazine Fujokai (‘Women’s world’), and also for other magazines, newspapers, novels and covers. The illustrations of Hayashi Fubö’s famous novel ‘Tange Sazen’ were his most important work. He became a popular painter of beauties with long eyelashes and blurred pupils. His prints of beauties were published around 1948-52 by Katö Junzö. From 1967, at the age of sixty, after a solo-exhibition, he devoted his life entirely to nihonga. Shimura Tatsumi was director and chairman of the Shuppan Bijutsuka Renmei (‘Union of the artists and publications’). (The Female Image: 20th Century Prints of Japanese Beauties. Hotei Publishing, 2000).