Description
Takahashi Hiroaki said Shotei (高橋弘明, 1871-1945) is a Japanese artist born in Tokyo.
Takahashi never left Japan but knew how to create the images that would seduce European and American amateurs, images offering a romantic vision of Japan which had ceased to exist at the end of the Edo period (1600-1868). He specialized in landscape drawing. Tourists and foreign collectors nostalgic for “old Japan” loved his prints.
The story of Takahashi is inseparable from that of Wananabe, the most famous print publisher and businessman of the 20th century. Takahashi's role would therefore have been to supply the publisher's commercial catalog with production more suited to the tastes of the European and American market: he created more than 800 works.
