Ōta Chōu

Ōta Chōu 太田聴雨 (1896-1958)

BIOGRAPHY

Sources: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists: Painting, Sculpture, Ceramics, Prints, Lacquer, Laurance P. Roberts, Weatherhill, 1976, p. 127 and Modern Boy, Modern Girl: Modernity in Japanese Art, 1910-1935, Ajioka Chiaki, Jackie Menzies, et al, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1998.

Ōta Chōu, a Japanese-style painter, was born Ōta Eikichi 太田栄吉 in Sendai. He became a pupil of Kawabata Gyokushō (1842-1913), a Japanese-style Shijō painter, at the age of 13 and in 1914, at the age of 18, he moved to Tokyo and began studying with the nihonga artist Naitō Seishū 内藤晴州 (?-?). In 1927 he began studying with Maeda Seison (1885-1977), a leading proponent of nihonga.

He exhibited with the Inten, became a juror for the post-war Nitten (The Japan Fine Arts Exhibition) and was a member of the Japanese Academy of Fine Arts. A professor at Tokyo University of Arts, he is best known for portraying historical figures and the manners and customs of the day, such as in two of his best known works below, Vaccination, created in 1934 and Women Observing Stars, created in 1936.

Other than this collection's print portraying the Confucian scholar Rai San'yō, see below, I am not aware of any other prints designed by the artist.