(b Edo [now Tokyo], 1743; d Edo 1812). Print designer. Along with (3) Katsukawa Shun’ei he was one of the most gifted students of the ukiyoe (‘pictures of the floating world’) painter and print designer (1) Katsukawa Shunsho. Shunko began studying under Shunsho at an early age. His student name, Kotsubo [Small Jar], was chosen out of deference for his master, who used a jar-shaped (tsubo) seal. Shunko started producing yakushae (‘pictures of actors’) around 1770. He entered his mature period in the 1780s, but palsy, contracted around 1788, incapacitated his right hand and forced him to retire. Even after his retirement, however, Shunko occasionally worked with his left hand. His faithfulness to his master’s style can be seen in his bold yakushae. Shunko developed the okubie (‘large-head pictures’), which Shunsho had produced in great number, and introduced ogaoe (‘large-face pictures’), in which an actor’s face fills the entire picture. Yakushae reached its highest point at this time, and Shunko paved the way for the yakushae of TOSHUSAI SHARAKU. Among Shunko’s representative works are Ichikawa Ebizo no Shibaraku (‘The actor Ichikawa Ebizo as Shibaraku’) and Yonsei Iwai Hanshiro (‘The actor Iwai Hanshiro IV’; Boston, MA, Mus. F.A.). Shunko also produced degatarizu (‘pictures of degatari’), depicting actors and accompanists on stage, a genre in which Torii Kiyonaga was prolific (see TORII, (8)). Shunko rarely produced bijinga (‘pictures of beautiful women’), but his powerful drawing style was particularly well suited to sumoe (‘pictures of sumo’), in which the massive physiognomies of the wrestlers dominate the picture. Unlike Shunsho, Shunko rarely painted nikuhitsuga (‘original paintings’). Book illustrations by Shunko are also rare. Perhaps because of his early retirement at around the age of 45 Shunko had no known students. He was succeeded by (5) Katsukawa Shunsen (Shunko II), a student of Shun’ei.

Part of the Katsukawa family

• Katsukawa Shunko (1743-1812)
  • Katsukawa: (3) Katsukawa Shun’ei
  • groups and movements
    • Katsukawa: (1) Katsukawa Shunsho
  • teachers
    • Katsukawa
  • works
    • Japan, §IX, 3(iii)(b): Prints, c 1760–c 1780