John & Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art
Reno, Nevada
The Lilley Museum of Art is located on the main campus of the University of Nevada, Reno.
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Artist: Isoda Koryusai (Japanese, b. 1735)
Isoda Koryusai was born in 1735 into the elite samurai class, in service of the Tsuchiya clan. He was one of the only print designers who came from this elite group in the history of the Ukiyo-e, and his background gave him a special status and certain unique interests, such as literary and historical works, as well as bird and flower subjects, especially falcons. Despite his productivity and status, he was considered a "minor master" and had been characterized as more of a skilled follower than a creative innovator. Nonetheless, Koryusai was a prolific print designer, with over one hundred and seventy series and more than two thousand five hundred designs attributed to his name. His most famous series, in which he does claim his originality, is the Hinagata wakana no hatsu moyo (A Pattern Book: First Designs for Young Herbs), an oban set of courtesans and their kamuro modeling kimono that extended to over one hundred and fifty designs, all but the final eleven by Koryusai. He was also productive in shunga (erotic prints), kacho-e (bird and flower prints and paintings), and hashira-e (the narrow "pillar prints"), which have been noted by critics to distinguish Koryusai from other Ukiyo-e artists by their excellence and originality. Koryusai's late work was significantly different from his early work. Straying away from Ukiyo-e, he created print designs with Chinese themes and subjects in a style influenced by the kano, the school patronized by the samurai, in a way returning to his native roots.
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