Hirafuku Hyakusui
A Nihonga painter from Kakunodate, Akita Prefecture. He valued sketching from close observation of nature and brought fresh air to Nihonga from the Meiji era into early Showa. He is also known as a tanka poet of the Araragi school.
Hirafuku Hyakusui was born in 1877 (Meiji 10) in Kakunodate (now Semboku, Akita Prefecture), the fourth son of the Nihonga painter Hirafuku Suian. He studied painting with his father, but lost him in 1890 (Meiji 23). In 1894 (Meiji 27) he went to Tokyo and became a pupil of Kawabata Gyokusho of the Shijo school, later studying at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1899 (Meiji 32).
In 1900 (Meiji 33) he formed the Mumeikai with Yuki Somei and others, aiming for sketch-based Nihonga that captured nature as it is. He went on to show works with groups such as the Kinreisha and was active at the Bunten and Teiten exhibitions. In the early Showa years he became a member of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts and served as a professor at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. He also grew close to Ito Sachio and, as an Araragi-school poet, left collections of tanka.
In October 1933 (Showa 8), while visiting Yokote in Akita Prefecture, he collapsed from a cerebral hemorrhage and died at 55. Many of his works depict the nature of his native Akita, and they can be seen at places such as the Akita Museum of Modern Art, the Akita Senshu Museum of Art, and the Hirafuku Memorial Art Museum in Semboku.
