Born in Kyoto, Yoshikawa Kanpô started studying Japanese painting at a very young age. Already at age 15 he was studying ukiyo-e. In 1914 he entered the Kyoto Specialist School of Painting, where he was taught by Takeuchi Seihô, Yamamoto Shunkyô and Kikuchi Hobun. His imagination was stirred by Kyoto's red-light district and theatre scene, and he started making small woodblock prints of the actors he saw perform. After he had completed his studies in 1920 he had a successsful career in painting and music. He remained involved in the theatre and he wrote several books about ukiyo-e. Between 1922 and 1924 he made a series of actor prints and scenes of Kyoto riverbanks for the publisher Satô Shôtarô. Ten of these designs were shown at the Toledo (Ohio) museum in 1930.
