Tōshūsai Sharaku ga

東洲斎写楽画 ‘Made by Toshusai Sharaku.’

Sharaku is one of the biggest mysteries of Japanese print art. Over the span of two years he produced 146 prints of actors for one of the most famous publishers at the time: Tsutaya Juzaburo.

But Sharaku’s identity still hasn’t been determined. There are hundreds of books written about who would hide behind the name of Sharaku - one of the less serious theories even suggests Sharaku is from Holland. It’s also notable that interest for Sharaku in Japan only came on quite late, sparked by the publishing of a German monograph by Julius Kurth in 1910. Nearly a 100 years after the publication of his prints, Sharaku finally came to be considered as one of the big print artists of Japan.