Kansetsu Hashimoto1883~1945 橋本関雪

Hashimoto Kansetsu (real name: Kanichi) was a Japanese-style painter active from the Meiji to early Showa period. Born in 1883 in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture, into the family of a Confucian scholar, he was steeped from childhood in Chinese poetry and classical learning under his father’s influence. He moved to Tokyo at fifteen and in 1903 entered “Chikujokai,” the painting school of the Kyoto-school master Takeuchi Seiho, eventually rising to become a leading figure in the Kyoto art world. He often took Chinese classical literature and motifs as his subject matter and established a distinctive style known as shin-nanga, producing acclaimed works in a wide range of genres. His representative work “Genen” (Black Gibbons, 1933) was praised by Emperor Showa and purchased by the Ministry of Education, earning him the nickname “Kansetsu of the Monkeys.” He was named an Imperial Household Artist in 1934 and died in 1945.