Kei Shibusawa1949~2012 澁澤卿

SHIBUSAWA Kei (real name Shibusawa Eishun, March 9, 1949 - April 29, 2012) was a Japanese-style painter and Nichiren-sect Buddhist priest. He graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts Faculty of Fine Arts in 1974 and worked as a designer at Nihonbashi Takashimaya before being ordained as a Nichiren priest in 1977. From 1982 he served as a part-time lecturer at the Tokyo University of the Arts and later as a visiting professor at Minobusan University. In 1995 he gained wide attention through the television program "Bi no Sekai" (The World of Beauty), which profiled him as "the priest-painter," and he became popularly known as the "painting priest." His delicately rendered depictions of Japan's seasonal nature and temples, infused with a uniquely Buddhist sensibility, continue to attract a devoted following.