Utagawa Hiroshige II
An ukiyo-e artist of the late Edo (Bakumatsu) and early Meiji periods. A pupil of the first Utagawa Hiroshige, he took the name Hiroshige II the year after his teacher died. He added "Akasaka Kiribatake in Rain at Dusk" to One Hundred Famous Views of Edo after his master's death.
Utagawa Hiroshige II was born in Edo in 1826 (Bunsei 9). His real name was Suzuki Shimpei, and like the first Hiroshige he is said to have come from a family of fire-brigade constables. Around the Koka era (1844-48) he became a pupil of the first Hiroshige, and, calling himself Shigenobu at first, he painted beauties, bird-and-flower subjects, and warrior prints. Before long he followed his teacher into landscape, and his style came closer to the first Hiroshige's.
When the first Hiroshige died in 1858 (Ansei 5), he married Otatsu, his master's adopted daughter, the following year (Ansei 6) and took the name Hiroshige II. That same year he added "Akasaka Kiribatake in Rain at Dusk" to the master's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, signing it "Drawn by Hiroshige II." He is thought also to have helped finish designs that were not complete in the first Hiroshige's lifetime, and one theory holds that the second Hiroshige's hand appears in three prints published after his teacher's death: "The Yamashita District of Ueno," "Ichigaya Hachiman Shrine," and "Snow at Bikuni Bridge." He went on to issue series such as One Hundred Famous Views of the Provinces and Thirty-six Views of the Eastern Capital, carrying on his master's tradition of famous-place landscapes.
After parting from Otatsu around 1865 (Keio 1), he gave up the name Hiroshige and used art names such as Kisai Rissho. He moved to Yokohama after the port opened and painted pictures to be pasted on tea chests for export, which earned him the nickname "Chabako Hiroshige" (Tea-chest Hiroshige). He died in 1869 (Meiji 2) at the age of 44.
