Kotaro Ikeda

After finishing junior high school, Japanese painter Kotaro Ikeda moved from Saga to Tokyo in 1913, where he studied at the Kawabata Painting School under Somei Yuki. In 1921 Ikeda graduated from the Japanese Painting Department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Until 1925, he continued to draw human figures while attending the Hongo Yōga Institute. In that year, he won first prize at the Emperor’s Exhibition and in the second half of the 1920s produced a series of Tokyo sceneries. After 1933 he quit the official exhibitions and concentrated on his own activities. During this period, he produced many landscape paintings and drew sketches when he went fishing every year. From 1963 he was a member of the Japanese Painting Office but continued to exhibit as a director.

The painting Fishing or Fish Pond shows the Somei fish pond. It was created in 1925 in the format 101.8 x 208.6 cm. The picture was painted with mineral pigments, called Iwa-Enogu, on silk. It was probably classified as a watercolor.