Kabuki Actor on a Folding Fan – Utagawa Kuniyoshi

A kabuki star bursts out of a giant fan, eyes blazing. In this striking print, Utagawa Kuniyoshi sets the bust of an actor inside a yellow roundel painted on a huge folding fan. The fan’s black and red bands sweep across the whole sheet, its ribs fanning out at the lower left, while a sword hilt bound with a red cord appears at the top right. The composition is daringly modern: bold curves, strong flat colours and a face that fills the frame.

The actor strikes a mie, the frozen pose at the climax of a kabuki scene: brows knitted, eyes crossed in a fierce glare, lips tight and fist clenched. His costume is a feast of patterns, with a black robe covered in a teal key-fret motif, a red garment woven with basketwork, blue flowers and little yellow birds. The blue-shaded jaw, a kabuki convention for a rough, masculine role, adds to the tension of the pose.

Kuniyoshi and the stars of kabuki

Kabuki actors were the celebrities of Edo, and their portraits sold like posters of today’s stars. Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), best known for his warriors, cats and monsters, also designed many actor prints, often with inventive formats like this portrait set on a fan, which plays on the fans that fans of the theatre carried with their idols’ faces.

• Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861)
• Date: [DATE]
• Technique: woodblock print (ukiyo-e)
• Format: ōban, vertical
• Theme: kabuki, actor portrait, Japanese theatre

A bold, graphic piece for a living room, a hallway or a lover of Japanese theatre. Pair it with Kuniyoshi’s Famous Heroes of the Kabuki Stage Played by Frogs, and discover more of his work in our Kuniyoshi collection.