Ito Seiu (伊藤晴雨)

Ito Seiu (伊藤晴雨), 1882–1961, was a Japanese painter in the Foundational.

Era: 1900s

PAINTER · WRITER

Father of modern kinbaku. Born Hajime Ito (伊藤一) on 3 March 1882 in Asakusa, Tokyo; son of a metalworker, trained in ivory carving and sculpture before turning to painting. Adopted the alias 'Seiu' (clear-rain) at age 13. By the 1910s a newspaper illustrator and theatre critic; later head of the Performing Arts section and chief illustrator at Yomiuri News. Drawn to scenes of torture in theatre and stories, produced a large body of paintings, drawings and photographs documenting kinbaku — including the 1919 suspension photo published in Hentai Shiryo (1926). Hired model Kise Sahara in 1919, who became his second wife. Censored from 1930, lost much of his work in the Great Tokyo Air Raid. Received an award from the Japan Artists Association in 1960; died 28 January 1961.

School: Foundational

Influences (mutual or directional): Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Nawa Yumio, Suma Toshiyuki, Ueda Seishiro, Nureki Chimuo, Arisue Go.

Influenced by: Ukiyo-e / Shunga, Kabuki Theater, Edo Period Torture & Punishment, Taisho Ero-Guro & Photography, Postwar SM Publishing.

Collaborators: Sahara Kise.

Associated venues, magazines, films and performances: Fuzoku Soshi.