Born Andō Tokutarō in 1797, Utagawa Hiroshige was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist. Hiroshige was a member of the Utagawa school from a young age. The school specialized in woodblock printing, which Hiroshige would eventually become known for.  In his works, he explored traditional ukiyo-e themes such as travel, representations of female beauty, actors, and historical scenes. Hiroshige published his first series of landscape prints in 1831. Through their composition and extensive use of color and color gradation, these prints received critical acclaim. Hiroshige continued to create many landscape series over his career, including The Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido, Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, and One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Often considered a master in the ukiyo-e style, many scholars view Hiroshige’s death as the beginning of the rapid decline of the genre.

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