Akatsuka Chūichi

Akatsuka Chūichi 赤塚忠一 (1883-?)

BIOGRAPHY

Very little information is available on Akatsuka, a yōga (Western-style) artist who worked in oils and watercolor. A close friend of the yōga painter and illustrator Nakazawa Hiromitsu (1874-1964), he accompanied him, along with the haiku poet Ishikura Suiyō (1875-1938), on a seventy-eight day pilgrimage along the Saigoku Kannon Pilgrimage route, which resulted in the 1925 "Picture Album of the Thirty-Three Pilgrimage Places of the Western Provinces" to which he contributed the below print of Nakazawa resting after a long day.

In the immediate aftermath of the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake he contributed, along with Nakazawa and several other artists, to the publisher Kanao Tanejirō's October 1923 Picture Album of the Great Kanto Earthquake 関東大震災画帖. His paintings can occasionally be found reproduced as period postcards, such as the below painting titled Early Autumn Sea exhibited at the 1921 4th annual Teiten (Imperial Art) exhibition and Tobunken [Tokyo National Research Institute for Cultural Properties" (東京国立文化財研究所)] records that he exhibited at the 1923 12th Teiten exhibition. He also contributed to the art journal Mizue みづゑ, a monthly review of the fine arts focusing on modern art. 

The 1945 "Directory of Contemporary Artists" (日本美術年鑑) notes that Akatsuka studied under Kiyokata (清方師事) [Kaburaki Kiyokata 鏑木清方 (1878-1972)], was a member of the Hakubakai 白馬會 (White Horse Society) and the Japan Watercolor Painting Society (日本水彩畫會) founded in 1913, and that he submited his work to a number of Bunten exhibitions.[1]

[1] "赤塚忠一 世田谷區上馬一ノ七三六 白馬會研、清方師事、東京、日本水彩畫會 、文帝入七・二〇" - extracted from the  National Diet Library Digital Library https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1139591/1/58 [accessed 2-23-24]