HISUI SUGIURA : A PIONEER OF JAPANESE GRAPHIC DESIGN

Hisui Sugiura

Born in Matsuyama City, Ehime Prefecture in 1876. In 1901, he graduated from Tokyo School of Fine Arts (now Tokyo University of the Arts) with a Japanese painting course. At first, he wanted to be a Japanese-style painter, but when he was a student at the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, he met a Western-style painter, Seiki Kuroda. .

After graduating from the same school, he became chief of the design department of Osaka Sanwa Printing Co., Ltd., and left the company the following year due to the dissolution of the design department. From around this time, he announced designs that were conscious of Art Nouveau on the covers of magazines, and attracted a lot of attention.

In 1905, he joined the Tokyo Chuo Shimbun. In 1908, he became a commissioned designer for Mitsukoshi Gofukuten and worked on the cover of “Mitsukoshi Times”. In 1910, he was appointed chief designer of the company and left the Chuo Shimbun.

In 1921, he became a lecturer at the design department of the Japan Art School. In 1924, he formed a creative design and poster research group “Shichininsha” and held its first exhibition in the same year at Mitsukoshi.

In 1929, he became head of the design department at the Imperial Art School (now Musashino Art University).
In 1934, he left Mitsukoshi.
In 1935, he resigned from the school due to the school closure incident, and participated in the establishment of the Tama Imperial Art School (now Tama Art University). He concurrently served as the school’s principal and head of the design department.

In 1955, he received the Imperial Award from the Academy of Fine Arts, the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 1958, and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette in 1965. Sunset on August 18 of the same year

Hisui Sugiura‘s books