Kunitarō Kosugi

Misai Kosugi’s father was a priest at a Shintō-shrine. In 1886 he became an apprentice to a local oil painter and later went to Tokyo, where he became ill and then returned to his home region. In 1900 Kosugi returned to Tokyo and had his first exhibition in 1904 with the Pacific Ocean artists’ association. He also started to draw illustrations and cartoons for various magazines. With the beginning of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 Kosugi went to the battlefields as a war correspondent. In 1913 he went to France for one year, while in 1920 he left the Japanese Art Conservatory and started using pseudonyms, mostly Misai Kosugi. In 1929 he travelled to China and became a member of the Imperial Art Academy in 1935. During World War II Kosugi had to be evacuated from Tokyo to the Niigata Prefecture, because his house was destroyed in an air raid.

Kosugi’s initial works show a trend towards Oriental romanticism. He later incorporated the art nouveau style, bringing together elements of Western and Eastern styles. He was a versatile sportsman, playing tennis and baseball and practicing karate, and was also known as a writer of a songbook and essays. His entry may be identical to a drawing shown on a Chinese postcard titled Cuju Composition. Cuju was a traditional Chinese soccer game. Its Chinese characters largely correspond to those of rugby. On the postcard, the sport can clearly be identified as rugby.