Biography Ôta, Saburô (1884 - 1969)

When Ôta Saburô was 17, he went to Tokyo, where he studied Western-style painting with Kuroda Seiki, and Japanese-style painting with Terazaki Kôgyô. From 1910 he exhibited paintings with the Bunten. Between 1912 and 1915 he made woodblock prints. He also designed Asagiri, a wonderful and truly beautiful small 2-volume book of poetry accompanied by woodblock prints and lithographs. He is said to have stopped making woodblock prints because someone criticized his prints as poor imitations of Takehisa Yumeji. Once you have seen Asagiri you know this criticism to be without any ground. He turned to painting, and after WWII he was head of the Aichi Prefectural Museum.