Seiu Ito
3 albums/41 artworks – Seiu Ito (1882 – 1961) also romanised as Seiyu Itoh, was a Japanese painter, recognised today as “the father of modern kinbaku” Ito was born Hajime Ito in Asakusa district and started his education in painting by 1890. His father was a metalworker and he also received training in ivory carving, later sculpture. He adopted the alias Seiu (Sino-Japanese reading of kanji for words ‘clear’ and ‘rain’) at age 13.Around 1907, he began working for newspapers. Ito hired a young art school model named Kise Sahara in 1919. Kise became Ito’s second wife after she got pregnant and posed willingly for her husband. Ito became the target of censors in 1930, which led to draining of his fortunes and he lost his works at the Great Tokyo Air Raid. As an artist, Ito was very interested…
