Rie Funakoshi (Japanese: 舩越 里恵, Hepburn: Funakoshi Rie; born January 11, 1985) better known by her stage name Rie fu…
Rie Funakoshi (Japanese: 舩越 里恵, Hepburn: Funakoshi Rie; born January 11, 1985) better known by her stage name Rie fu (リエ フゥ, Rie Fū), is a Japanese singer-songwriter and musician. She resides in Tokyo but frequently travels to the United Kingdom, where she is known as Rié, to record and promote her work. Rie fu's songs are often bilingual, since she is fluent in both English and Japanese. Although most of her songs are primarily sung in Japanese, many feature entire verses written in English (such as Life is Like a Boat). Of her songs written entirely in Japanese, several have later been released as English-language versions.
Famous People from Tokyo
Tokyo: 35 people
Noritake Kinashi (木梨 憲武, Kinashi Noritake; born 9 March 1962) is a Japanese comedian, actor, singer and artist. He is…
Noritake Kinashi (木梨 憲武, Kinashi Noritake; born 9 March 1962) is a Japanese comedian, actor, singer and artist. He is the short member of the comedy duo Tunnels, with whom he was a member of the pop group Yaen. His partner is Takaaki Ishibashi. He is the executive vice president of the entertainment office Arrival. Kinashi's wife is actress Narumi Yasuda. His cousin is Liberal Democratic Party Suginami lawmaker Morisho Kinashi.
Tomorowo Taguchi (田口 トモロヲ, Taguchi Tomorowo; born November 30, 1957) is a Japanese actor, film director and musician.…
Tomorowo Taguchi (田口 トモロヲ, Taguchi Tomorowo; born November 30, 1957) is a Japanese actor, film director and musician. After leaving Dokkyo University without graduating, he started to earn his living as an illustrator, writer and pornographic cartoonist. He joined a theatre called Hakken no Kai in 1978 and he made a screen debut in Zokubutsu Zukan (based on the book by Yasutaka Tsutsui) in 1982. He was also a prominent cult musician in the Tokyo underground scene with his band Bachikaburi in the 1980s and early 1990s. He is probably most well known to the West as the lead actor in Tetsuo and Tetsuo II directed by Shinya Tsukamoto. He also makes regular appearances in Takashi Miike's films. He became known to the Japanese public as a narrator for the TV documentary series Project X - Challengers which aired between 2000 and 2005 on NHK. Taguchi has directed 3 films, Iden & Tity in 2003, Shikisoku Generation in 2009, and Piece of Cake in 2015.
Kōji Ishizaka (石坂 浩二, Ishizaka Kōji; born 20 June 1941 in Tokyo as Heikichi Mutō (武藤 兵吉, Mutō Heikichi)) is a Japanese…
Kōji Ishizaka (石坂 浩二, Ishizaka Kōji; born 20 June 1941 in Tokyo as Heikichi Mutō (武藤 兵吉, Mutō Heikichi)) is a Japanese actor. Ishizaka graduated from Keio University with a B.L. degree. He serves as a special advisor for the Japan Plamodel Industry Association, and on 23 February 2009, he founded Rowguanes, a plastic model enthusiast group for the baby boomers. He starred as Kosuke Kindaichi in the 1970s series of Kindaichi films.
Kanda Nissho (神田 日勝; 1937–1970) was a Japanese artist and farmer. He is known mostly for his oil paintings. Nissho…
Kanda Nissho (神田 日勝; 1937–1970) was a Japanese artist and farmer. He is known mostly for his oil paintings. Nissho Kanda was born in 1937 in the Nerima district of Tokyo. When he was seven, his family moved to the Tokachi district in Hokkaidō to work the farmland there. Raised in the hard, unfamiliar life of a settler’s family, he eventually became a farmer himself. At the same time, he came to put his heart into painting. His powerful works depicting scenes of daily life, each brushstroke imbued with his soul, gradually gained acclaim in the art world. However, in 1970, just when he was beginning to develop new modes of expression, he died of illness at the age of 32. His last painting of a horse was incomplete, with its body half finished. In 1993, Kanda Nissho Memorial Museum of Art was established in Tokachi, Hokkaidō. Kanda’s unfinished last work, Horse serves as the symbol of the museum. Since his death, other works such as Interiors have been in the collection of the Hokkaidō Museum of Modern Art in Sapporo and the Hokkaidō Obihiro Museum of Art in Obihiro.
Kikuō Hayashiya (Japanese: 林家 木久扇, Hepburn: Hayashiya Kikuō; born October 19, 1937) is a Japanese rakugo performer and…
Kikuō Hayashiya (Japanese: 林家 木久扇, Hepburn: Hayashiya Kikuō; born October 19, 1937) is a Japanese rakugo performer and a featured member of the long-running television comedy show Shōten. His real name is Hiroshi Toyota (豊田 洋, Toyota Hiroshi), although he is most widely known by his previous comedian name Kikuzō Hayashiya (林家 木久蔵), a name he was the first to assume. The new Kikuzō Hayashiya is his son, the former Kikuo Hayashiya (林家 きくお, Hayashiya Kikuo). On Shōten he always wears a yellow kimono. He is known for making commonplace jokes and usually "plays the fool".
Izumi Yukimura (雪村 いづみ, Yukimura Izumi; born March 20, 1937) is a Japanese popular singer and actress. Yukimura made…
Izumi Yukimura (雪村 いづみ, Yukimura Izumi; born March 20, 1937) is a Japanese popular singer and actress. Yukimura made her debut with the song "Omoide no Warutsu" (想い出のワルツ, "Till I Waltz Again with You") in 1953. Her style of singing varied from jazz to rock and roll. She became one of the three most popular female singers in the early postwar Japan, known as the “Sannin Musume (three daughters), along with Chiemi Eri and Hibari Misora. On her 1974 album Super Generation, she sang Ryoichi Hattori's songs along with four popular musicians: Masataka Matsutoya, Shigeru Suzuki, Tatsuo Hayashi and Haruomi Hosono. Eri, who died in 1982, and Misora, who died in 1989, also recorded songs with Yukimura as a group in the 1950s, but those recordings had not been released for about 50 years because they each belonged to separate record labels. In 2004, their album including those songs was finally released for the first time. Her daughter is singer, actress, and painter Maria Asahina.
Chiyoko Nakatani (中谷千代子, Nakatani Chiyoko, January 16, 1930 - December 26, 1981) was a Japanese picture book author and…
Chiyoko Nakatani (中谷千代子, Nakatani Chiyoko, January 16, 1930 - December 26, 1981) was a Japanese picture book author and illustrator. During the Shōwa era, Nakatani was one of the artists to popularize Japanese children's books outside of Japan.
Kunio Makino (27 May 1925 (Taisho 14) – 1 October 1986 (Showa 61)) was a Japanese painter, born in Hatagaya…
Kunio Makino (27 May 1925 (Taisho 14) – 1 October 1986 (Showa 61)) was a Japanese painter, born in Hatagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.
Fumiko Hori (堀 文子, Hori Fumiko; July 2, 1918 – February 5, 2019) was a Japanese artist, known for her paintings in the…
Fumiko Hori (堀 文子, Hori Fumiko; July 2, 1918 – February 5, 2019) was a Japanese artist, known for her paintings in the Nihonga style.
Yuki Katsura (桂ゆき, Katsura Yuki, also Katsura Yukiko, 10 October 1913 – 5 February 1991) was a Japanese artist whose…
Yuki Katsura (桂ゆき, Katsura Yuki, also Katsura Yukiko, 10 October 1913 – 5 February 1991) was a Japanese artist whose career spanned from the prewar to the postwar eras. During her six-decade career, Katsura did not conform to one particular artistic genre or style, instead employing a variety of approaches including painting, mixed media collage, and caricature to depict a range of subjects using folkloric allegory, religious iconography, realism, and experiments into abstraction. She was trained in both Japanese and Western painting styles and traditions, which was a rare accomplishment for a woman of her time. Katsura engaged with subjects that responded to critical socio-political events in mid-century Japan, such as societal expectations for Japanese women, the militarization of Japan, the post-war occupation, the rise of nuclear power, and gender equality. Her diverse approaches, engagement with critical issues, and adherence to personal autonomy gained her critical acclaim; she has been called a "pioneer among women artists," and is considered influential to the genesis of the Japanese avant-garde before and after the Asia Pacific War. Katsura has been the subject of several large museum retrospectives in Japan, including the Shimonoseki Municipal Museum of Art (1991); Ibaraki Prefectural Museum of Modern Art (1998); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2013). While she is very well-known in her native Japan, Katsura was left out of the canonization of Japanese art and art market in a Western context for many years. In the 2010s, she became the subject of more curatorial and art historical interest and publications in English. Katsura's artworks are included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama; Ohara Museum of Art; Itabashi Art Museum; the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; the Yokohama Museum of Art; and the University of Arizona Museum of Art.
Toko Shinoda (篠田 桃紅, Shinoda Tōkō; 28 March 1913 – 1 March 2021) was a Japanese artist. Shinoda is best known for her…
Toko Shinoda (篠田 桃紅, Shinoda Tōkō; 28 March 1913 – 1 March 2021) was a Japanese artist. Shinoda is best known for her abstract sumi ink paintings and prints. Shinoda's oeuvre was predominantly executed using the traditional means and media of East Asian calligraphy, but her resulting abstract ink paintings and prints express a nuanced visual affinity with the bold black brushstrokes of mid-century abstract expressionism. In the postwar New York art world, Shinoda's works were exhibited at the prominent art galleries including the Bertha Schaefer Gallery and the Betty Parsons Gallery. Shinoda remained active all her life and in 2013, she was honored with a touring retrospective exhibition at four venues in Gifu Prefecture (Gifu Collection of Modern Arts; Toko Shinoda Art Space; Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu; and Gallery Kohodo) to celebrate her 100th birthday. Shinoda has had solo exhibitions at the Seibu Museum at Art, Tokyo in 1989, the Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu in 1992, the Singapore Art Museum in 1996, the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in 2003, the Sogo Museum of Art in 2021, the Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery in 2022, and among many others. Shinoda's works are in the collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago, the British Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Harvard Art Museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Singapore Art Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Victoria, and other leading museums of the world. Shinoda was also a prolific writer published more than 20 books.
Shunsuke Matsumoto (松本 竣介, Matsumoto Shunsuke; 1912–1948) was a Japanese painter, who primarily painted in the Yōga…
Shunsuke Matsumoto (松本 竣介, Matsumoto Shunsuke; 1912–1948) was a Japanese painter, who primarily painted in the Yōga ("Western painting") style. Matsumoto is known for his urban landscapes. His works can be divided into two series: those depicting anonymous urban landscapes and people in cold blue tones in a montage style, and those depicting Tokyo and Yokohama landscapes in dull brown tones. For a short period between 1947 and 1948, Matsumoto also painted Cubist-style works.
Yasushi Sugiyama (杉山 寧, Sugiyama Yasushi; 20 October 1909 – 20 October 1993) was a Japanese painter of the Shōwa and…
Yasushi Sugiyama (杉山 寧, Sugiyama Yasushi; 20 October 1909 – 20 October 1993) was a Japanese painter of the Shōwa and Heisei eras, who practiced the nihonga style of watercolour painting.
Kazu Wakita (Japanese: 脇田和; 7 June 1908 – 27 November 2005) was a Japanese painter. His work was part of the painting…
Kazu Wakita (Japanese: 脇田和; 7 June 1908 – 27 November 2005) was a Japanese painter. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1936 Summer Olympics.
Tomoyoshi Murayama (村山 知義, Murayama Tomoyoshi; 18 January 1901 – 22 March 1977) was a Japanese artist, play writer…
Tomoyoshi Murayama (村山 知義, Murayama Tomoyoshi; 18 January 1901 – 22 March 1977) was a Japanese artist, play writer, novelist and drama producer active during the Shōwa period in Japan.
Shinsui Itō (Japanese: 伊東 深水, romanized: Itō Shinsui; 4 February 1898 – 8 May 1972) was the pseudonym of a Nihonga…
Shinsui Itō (Japanese: 伊東 深水, romanized: Itō Shinsui; 4 February 1898 – 8 May 1972) was the pseudonym of a Nihonga painter and ukiyo-e woodblock print artist in Taishō- and Shōwa-period Japan. He was one of the great names of the shin-hanga art movement, which revitalized the traditional art after it began to decline with the advent of photography in the early 20th century. His real name was Itō Hajime (Japanese: 伊東 一).
Luke (Lucas) Hasegawa (9 July 1897 – 3 July 1967) was a Japanese artist and convert to Catholicism who was commissioned…
Luke (Lucas) Hasegawa (9 July 1897 – 3 July 1967) was a Japanese artist and convert to Catholicism who was commissioned to paint murals remembering the 26 Martyrs of Nagasaki for the Church of the Holy Japanese Martyrs in Civitavecchia, Italy. He is a graduate of Morning Star (Gyosei) International School in Tokyo. His work is documented in a book titled Each with His Own Brush: Contemporary Christian Art in Asia and Africa by Daniel Johnson Fleming, published by Friendship Press in 1938.
Tomoe Iwaoka (とも枝単独, Iwaoka Tomoe; June 15, 1896 – November 7, 1933) was a Japanese-style painter and illustrator, best…
Tomoe Iwaoka (とも枝単独, Iwaoka Tomoe; June 15, 1896 – November 7, 1933) was a Japanese-style painter and illustrator, best known for her contributions to art for children. She was active from the end of the Taishō era until the beginning of the Shōwa era. Tomoe Iwaoka was born on June 15, 1896, in Tokyo, Japan. Her father was a prominent lawyer named Iyoji Iwaoka. In 1912 when Tomoe was 16, her father was elected to the 11th House of Representatives in Japan. Tomoe Iwaoka died on November 7, 1933, in Tokyo at the age of 37.
Haruko Hasegawa (Japanese: 長谷川春子; 1895 – 1967) was a Japanese painter, illustrator, and writer. She was known for Yōga…
Haruko Hasegawa (Japanese: 長谷川春子; 1895 – 1967) was a Japanese painter, illustrator, and writer. She was known for Yōga (Western-style Japanese painting) war painting, and was a member of the Kokugakai arts organization. Hasegawa visited war zones in the 1930s and 1940s, to highlight Japanese armed forces and patriotism in both her illustrations and writings.
Kōshirō Onchi (恩地 孝四郎, 2 July 1891 – 3 June 1955), who is also known as Onchi Kōshirō was Tokyo-born Japanese artist…
Kōshirō Onchi (恩地 孝四郎, 2 July 1891 – 3 June 1955), who is also known as Onchi Kōshirō was Tokyo-born Japanese artist who is best known for his prints. He was the father of the sōsaku-hanga movement in twentieth-century Japan, and a photographer. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.
Ryūsei Kishida (岸田 劉生, Kishida Ryūsei; June 23, 1891 – December 20, 1929) was a Japanese painter in Taishō and Shōwa…
Ryūsei Kishida (岸田 劉生, Kishida Ryūsei; June 23, 1891 – December 20, 1929) was a Japanese painter in Taishō and Shōwa period Japan. He is best known for his realistic yōga-style portraiture, but also for his nihonga paintings in the 1920s.
Gorō Tsuruta (鶴田 吾郎, Tsuruta Gorō; July 8, 1890 – January 1, 1969) was a Japanese painter of the yōga (or…
Gorō Tsuruta (鶴田 吾郎, Tsuruta Gorō; July 8, 1890 – January 1, 1969) was a Japanese painter of the yōga (or Western-style) movement and a member of the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition.
Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (藤田 嗣治, Fujita Tsuguharu; 27 November 1886 – 29 January 1968) was a Japanese-French painter.…
Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (藤田 嗣治, Fujita Tsuguharu; 27 November 1886 – 29 January 1968) was a Japanese-French painter. After studying Western-style painting in Japan, Foujita travelled to Paris, where he encountered the international modern art scene of the Montparnasse neighbourhood and developed an eclectic style that borrowed from both Japanese and European artistic traditions. With his unusual fashion and distinctive figurative style, Foujita reached the height of his fame in 1920s Paris. His watercolour and oil works of nudes, still lifes, and self-portraits were a commercial success and he became a notable figure in the Parisian art scene. Foujita spent three years traveling through South and North America before returning to Japan in 1933, documenting his observations in sketches and paintings. Upon his return home, Foujita became an official war artist during World War II, illustrating battle scenes to raise the morale of the Japanese troops and citizens. His oil paintings won him acclaim during the war, but public perception of him became mixed following the Japanese defeat. Without significant prospects in the post-war Japanese art scene, Foujita returned to France in 1950, where he would spend the rest of his life. He received French nationality in 1955 and converted to Catholicism in 1959. His latter years were spent working on the frescoes for a small, Romanesque chapel in Reims that he had constructed. He died in 1968, shortly after the chapel officially opened. In France, Foujita is remembered as part of the années folles of the 1920s, but public opinion of him in Japan remains mixed due to his monumental depictions of the war. Retrospective exhibitions organized since 2006 in Japan have sought to establish Foujita's place in Japanese twentieth-century art history.
Hitoshi Ikebe (池部 鈞, Ikebe Hitoshi; 3 March 1886 – 17 December 1969) was a Japanese painter. His work was part of the…
Hitoshi Ikebe (池部 鈞, Ikebe Hitoshi; 3 March 1886 – 17 December 1969) was a Japanese painter. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.
Tetsugorō Yorozu (萬 鉄五郎, Yorosu Tetsugorō; November 17, 1885 – May 1, 1927) was a Japanese painter, noted for his work…
Tetsugorō Yorozu (萬 鉄五郎, Yorosu Tetsugorō; November 17, 1885 – May 1, 1927) was a Japanese painter, noted for his work in introducing the Avant-garde trend, especially cubism into Japanese yōga (Western-style) painting in the early 20th century.
Saneatsu Mushanokōji (武者小路 実篤(實篤), Mushanokōji Saneatsu; 12 May 1885 – 9 April 1976) was a Japanese novelist…
Saneatsu Mushanokōji (武者小路 実篤(實篤), Mushanokōji Saneatsu; 12 May 1885 – 9 April 1976) was a Japanese novelist, playwright, poet, artist, and philosopher active during the late Taishō and Shōwa periods of Japan. Later on in life he requested that the pronunciation of his surname (as far as was concerned) be changed from the usual Mushanokōji, to Mushakōji, but without much success. He was nicknamed Musha and Futo-o by his colleagues.
Heizo Kanayama (金山 平三, Kanayama Heizō; 18 December 1883 – 15 July 1964) was a Japanese painter. His work was part of…
Heizo Kanayama (金山 平三, Kanayama Heizō; 18 December 1883 – 15 July 1964) was a Japanese painter. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.
Ishii Hakutei (石井柏亭) (28 March 1882 – 29 December 1958) was a Japanese yōga painter.
Seiu Ito (伊藤晴雨, Itō Seiu), also romanised as Seiyu Itoh (3 March 1882 – 28 January 1961), was a Japanese painter…
Seiu Ito (伊藤晴雨, Itō Seiu), also romanised as Seiyu Itoh (3 March 1882 – 28 January 1961), was a Japanese painter, recognised today as "the father of modern kinbaku". Ito's life was the subject of director Noboru Tanaka's 1977 Nikkatsu Roman porno film Beauty's Exotic Dance: Torture!, the final entry in his "Showa Era trilogy".
Kiyokata Kaburaki (鏑木 清方, Kaburaki Kiyokata; August 31, 1878 – March 2, 1972) was the art-name of a Nihonga artist and…
Kiyokata Kaburaki (鏑木 清方, Kaburaki Kiyokata; August 31, 1878 – March 2, 1972) was the art-name of a Nihonga artist and the leading master of the bijin-ga genre in the Taishō and Shōwa eras. His legal name was Kaburaki Ken'ichi. The artist himself used the reading "Kaburaki", but many Western (and some Japanese) sources transliterate it as "Kaburagi".
Kitazawa Yasuji (北澤 保次; 20 July 1876 – 25 August 1955), known by his pen name Kitazawa Rakuten (北澤 楽天), was a Japanese…
Kitazawa Yasuji (北澤 保次; 20 July 1876 – 25 August 1955), known by his pen name Kitazawa Rakuten (北澤 楽天), was a Japanese manga and nihonga artist, who was the first professional cartoonist in Japan, and the first to use the term "manga" in its modern sense. He drew editorial cartoons and comic strips during the years from the late Meiji to the early Shōwa era. He is considered by many historians to be the founding father of modern manga, and his work was an inspiration to many younger manga artists and animators.
Kajita Hanko (梶田半古; July 23, 1870–April 23, 1917) was a Japanese painter.
Ogata Gekkō (尾形月耕; 1859 – 1 October 1920) was a Japanese artist best known as a painter and a designer of ukiyo-e…
Ogata Gekkō (尾形月耕; 1859 – 1 October 1920) was a Japanese artist best known as a painter and a designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. He was self-taught in art, won numerous national and international prizes, and was one of the earliest Japanese artists to win an international audience.
Kawamura Kiyoo (川村清雄) (1852–1934) was a yōga artist in Meiji to Shōwa Japan.