Seison Maeda

Representative of Modern Japanese School

Seison Maeda enrolled at the art school headed by Hanko Kajita in Tokyo in 1901. He met and befriended fellow student, Kokei Kobayashi, who work was influential in Maeda’s early paintings. He traveled to Italy in 1922 and was awestruck by the frescoes of the Italian Renaissance. Although he known mostly for his figures, he also did landscapes and genre scenes. In 1935, Maeda was appointed to the Imperial Art Academy and was given the Order of Cultural Merit twenty years later. His autobiography was published in 1969.