Kokei Tsuruya has a unique place among Japan’s contemporary print artists. His works are masterful portraits of Kabuki actors with expressive faces and exaggerated hands. Emotionally charged, bold and vividly realistic these prints are a fascinating mixture of traditional ukiyo-e with a “today” bend.
Kokei was born in 1946 in Kanagawa prefecture. Although he was from a family of artists, both his father and grandfather were well known painters, Kokei had no formal art training. It was not until the age of 32 that he began to make woodblock prints of popular contemporary kabuki actors in the style of the great ukiyo-e artist Sharaku. Takeomi Nagayama, the director of the old kabuki theater in Tokyo, took notice of his work and encouraged him, even selling his prints in the kabuki theater.
Kokei designs, carves and prints each work himself using mica and elaborate printing techniques. Each limited edition print is on a very thin, resilient Ganpi paper that is very difficult to work with but gives a translucent quality to each design. Kokei usually works for one to two months on each print and when he is finished printing an edition he destroys the woodblocks. In late 2000 Kokei announced that he would be retiring from the print world.
