About the artist:

Migita Toshihide was born in 1863 with the name Migita Toyohiko in Ōitaken, Shizuoka Province. His father was a Kano school painter. He studied Western-style painting under Kunisawa Shinkuro (1847-1877) and after Shinkuro’s death with Honda Kinkichirō (1850?-1921), before entering the school of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) in Tokyo at the age of 17, from whom he received his art name Toshihide. He studied Japanese-style painting with Watanabe Shotei (1851-1918) and it is reported that he studied ceramic decoration at some point in his life. He designed a wide variety of prints including actor prints, bijin-ga (prints of beautiful women), newspaper illustrations, kuchi-e (illustrations for novels) and senso-e of the Sino-Japanese (1894-1895) and Russo-Japanese (1904-1905) Wars. From 1887, like many of the woodblock artists who were trying to adapt to changes in art and publishing, he worked as an illustrator for books and newspapers, including a long stint with the Asahi shimbun starting in 1897. He was a member of the Nihon Bijutsu Kyokai (Japan Art Association) and Nihon Bijutsuin (Japan Art Institute), frequently serving as a juror for these groups. Among his pupils were Ikeda Terukata (1883-1921), Ikeda Shōen (1886-1917), Kaburagi Kiyokata (1878-1972) and Hirezaki Eiho (1881-1968). While Toshihide is best known for his Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese War prints he produced some beautiful prints of bijin-ga such as Twelve Aspects of Beautiful Women (Bijin junishi), 1901 published by Akiyama Buemon. Toshide’s Sino-Japanese War prints are untypical in that they do not caricature the Chinese enemy, even the mere foot soldier. Donald Keene writes "Toshihide was the most accomplished of the Sino-Japanese War artists at drawing the human figure, not only in convincingly accurate anatomical terms, but also in such a way to impart special dignity."