Watanabe Seitei Biography

A well known Japanese artist, Watanabe Seitei is famous for his paintings and prints of birds and flowers (kacho-e). His designs combine calligraphic lines with delicate details and special attention to shading. His simple compositions are both dynamic and asymmetrical, and make good use of negative space.

Seitei studied with the famous painter Kikuchi Yosai and travelled in 1878 to Paris, a trip that greatly influenced his later work. Around 1890 he began working in woodcuts, and published his first album of work in 1891. The second, called The Bird and the Flower, was published in 1903, and two years before his death, he published his third collection: The Collection of Birds and Flowers by Seitei.