Okamoto Kiichi

Illustrations by Okamoto Kiichi for the legendary illustrated magazine Kodomo no kuni ("Children's Land"), 1922–30 Bio of Okamoto Kiichi (1888–1930) by the Saru Gallery:Okamoto Kiichi studied together with Kuroda Seiki at the school of Hakubakai. He first exhibited woodblock prints in 1912. He was a member of various artists' societies, and contributed his self-carved woodblock prints to a number of magazines, one of which was Kindai no Yôga. In the latter part of his career he created designs for stage scenery and also worked as an illustrator of children's stories. His prints were also used as book illustrations by Onchi Kôshirô. A longer bio can be found at the Kodomo No Kuni site, and there's even a wikipedia entry. Edmond Dulac and Arthur Rackham have been cited as influences. I think I also see Benjamin Rabier in some of his animal illustrations. There's one small collection of his work currently available (in Japanese). About the site that houses 9000 images from the almost 300 issues of Kodomo no kuni: "This program was created as part of the Picture Book Gallery project of the International Library of Children's Literature to introduce in digital form the story of the picture book genre from its beginnings until the present. The program was designed to reproduce the works contained in the journal Kodomo no kuni [Children's Land] and convert them to digital images, which have been edited and titled and made available to the public as a virtual exhibit." Previous posts from this archive: Hatsuyama Shigeru and Takeo Takei. This post first appeared on Feb. 5, 2015 on 50 Watts Dear internet editors: When you reblog more than 50% of a post you raise my blood pressure and hence shorten my lifespan.