Saru Gallery
       Japanese Prints & Japanese Paintings

Biography Takehisa, Yumeji (1884 - 1934)

Yumeji Takehisa, born in Okayama, moved to Tokyo in 1901. He was a self-taught artist, who tried his hand at many things during his life: he wrote poetry and picture books, he designed picture postcards, he ran a shop with various craft objects and self-designed prints, and last but not least he was successful as a woodblock print artist and as a painter. Nowadays he is a very popular artist, especially in Japan, and his prints and paintings of languid Taisho beauties are in great demand. His work has a strong nostalgic appeal. In 1932 he made a trip to USA and subsequently to Europe. On his return to Japan he had to be hospitalized and he died of tuberculosis in a sanitorium. His self-published prints of 1914-16 were posthumously republished.