Saru Gallery
       Japanese Prints & Japanese Paintings

Biography Kahô, Nakajima (1866 - 1939)

The Shijô-school painter Nakajima Kayô (1813-1877) is believed to be Kahô's father. In 1867 Kayô's elder daughter, Tatsu (d. 1869) married the noted painter Tomioka Tessai (1836-1924), and this family relationship is blieved to have been the basis of Kahô's lifelong friendship with the famous painter, who was 30 years older than he.
Kahô studied painting under Mori Kansai (1814-1892), whereas Tessai was his calligraphy teacher. In his early years Kahô was a competent painter in the Maruyama-Shijô tradition, but at the end of the 1910s he started studying 18th century painters from the Kansai district, e.g. Nagasawa Rosetsu, Itô Jakuchû and especially Yosa Buson, whose style served as his model from then on.
Apart from making paintings, Kahô also made prints, lacquer paintings and pottery.
Many thanks to Jon de Jong, who put Nakajima Kahô firmly on the map in 2012 in an exhibition and accompanying catalogue.