Hanging scroll - Silk - Woman - Ogata Gekko (1859-1920) - 'Kajin kan'ō-zu' 佳人観桜図 (Beauty watching cherry blossoms) - Signed Gekkō 月耕 - Japan - 1913 (Taisho 2)

Hanging scroll - Silk - Woman - Ogata Gekko (1859-1920) - 'Kajin kan'ō-zu' 佳人観桜図 (Beauty watching cherry blossoms) - Signed Gekkō 月耕 - Japan - 1913 (Taisho 2) This scroll was painted by Ogata Gekko in 1913 (Taisho 2) . The signature is ‘Gekko’ 月耕 memo He was born as Nakagami Shōnosuke (名鏡 正之助) in Kyōbashi Yazaemon-chō in Edo (modern Tokyo) in 1859. Gekkō was self-taught in art, and began decorating porcelain and rickshaws, and designing flyers for the pleasure quarters. From the 1890s Gekkō won a number of art prizes, both national and international. He was one of the earliest Japanese artists to win international attention. At the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 he won a prize for Edo Sannō matsuri (江戸山王祭, “Edo’s Sannō Festival”) , and in 1904 he won the Gold Prize for the series Fuji hyakkei (富士百景, “One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji”) at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. His work was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900 and at the Japan-British Exhibition in London in 1910. In 1898 at the Japan Art Association, Emperor Meiji bought his painting Soga yo-uchi (曽我夜討, “Night Attack of the Soga”) . He won third prize at the sixth Ministry of Education Art Exhibition in 1912.