Michisei Kono1895~1950 河野通勢

Kono Michisei (June 10, 1895 – March 31, 1950) was a Japanese Western-style painter and printmaker, born in Gunma Prefecture and raised in Suzaka, Nagano Prefecture. His father Kono Jiro had studied Western painting under Takahashi Yuichi before becoming a photographer; a devout member of the Japanese Orthodox Church, he had Michisei baptized at age nine with the Christian name Petr. Michisei worked across an unusually wide range of genres, including landscapes, portraits and self-portraits, copper engravings, woodblock prints, book design, illustration, and ink painting, producing more than eighty known copper engravings—a body of work exceptional in both quality and quantity for the Taisho period. His copper-engraved series documenting the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake combine historical record with vivid immediacy. He associated with Mushanokoji Saneatsu of the Shirakaba group and participated in the Sodo-sha led by Kishida Ryusei.