Kōgyo Tsukioka

Who was Kōgyo Tsukioka?

Tsukioka Kōgyo, sometimes called Sakamaki Kōgyo, was a Japanese artist of the Meiji period. He was a student and adopted son of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, and also studied with Ogata Gekkō. Although Kōgyo sometimes painted other subjects, for most of his career he made pictures of Japanese noh theatre, either as large-scale paintings or colored woodblock prints. Many of the latter were published in series and sold as multi-volume sets. Some sets, such as Nōgaku zue, have been preserved as albums in their original bindings, including accordion-style bindings known as orihon, while other sets such as Nōga taikan, were issued in sewn bindings known as yamato toji. Although most bound sets belong to institutional collections, individual prints by Kōgyo can still be found through dealers specializing in Japanese prints.