Kitagawa Utamaro.

Utamaro turned the female face into a landscape. A master of bijin-ga, the portrait of beautiful women, he gave up the setting for the close-up, isolating a gesture, a sidelong glance, the nape bared by the chignon, and brought the genre to an unprecedented psychological intensity.

Little is known of his life. Discovered by the publisher Tsutaya Jūzaburō, he reigned over the image of beauty in 1790s Edo, from the courtesans of Yoshiwara to ordinary women caught in a passing moment.

« Three Beauties of the Present Time » gathers three celebrated figures in a perfect triangle, playing on likeness and nuance. In 1804 a print deemed seditious earned him manacles and prison; he died two years later, with no reliable portrait of him surviving.

Galerie Yanaka has followed Utamaro's work since 2022, around the portrayal of beauties of the 1790s.