Torii Kotondo (1900-1976)
Of all the early Showa era bijin-ga artists, prints by Torii Kotondo are always certain to take my breath away. Kotondo was born in Tokyo's Nihonbashi with the name Saito Akira. At the age of 15 he was addopted into the Torii family by Torii Kiyotada (Torii VII) and given the name Kotondo. In the Taisho era he studied under Kobori Tomone and the bijin-ga artist Kaburagi Kiyokata. In 1925 he began exhibiting bijin-ga paintings at Inten, and then designed almost all his woodblock bijin-ga prints from 1927 to 1933, first via the publisher Sakai and Kawaguchi, and later via Ikeda. In 1941 he became Torii VIII (Kiyotada V) after is adoptive father's death. He is known to have published only 22 bijin-ga woodblock prints, all of which are exceptionally rare and expensive. Sakai and Kawaguchi published two limited-edition sets -- a domestic edition of 300 prints and an export edition of 200 prints. Later, Kawaguchi released a further edition of 300 or 350 prints. The Ikeda-published prints are exceedingly rare, as only a single limited-edition set of 100 prints was published. It is however possible to see pre-war strikes of Kawaguchi and Ikeda prints without edition numbers, although these are also quite rare and may be artist and/or publisher proofs, etc. All of the prints you see below are pre-war strikes, not 1980's recarved later editions.
Rain 1929 Limited edition 17/200	Rain 1929 Limited edition 114/200	In a Light Summer Kimono with Irises 1933 Limited edition 17/100	Combing Hair 1929 Limited edition 235/300
Early Summer Fine Weather 1936, November (Kuchi-e)
Daruma Doll Game c. 1930s Watercolour