Hyakutake, Kaneyuki

Hyakutake Kanayuki was one of the early pioneers of Western-style painting in Japan. But Hyakutake was not an artist by profession. Born in Saga, Kyūshū in southern Japan, Hyakutake Kanayuki was a close companion and assistant to the last Daimyō of the Saga domain, Nabeshima Naohiro, who became a high-ranking government official after the Meiji Restoration.

As a diplomat, Hyakutake accompanied Ambassador Iwakura Tomomi to Europe in 1871 and then Nabeshima to England in 1874, where he studied oil painting with Thomas Miles Richardson Jr in London while performing official duties.

During his stay in England, Hyakutake exhibited one of his oil paintings 'View from Yokohama Japan' at the 1876 Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy. Hyakutake was not only the first Japanese to exhibit at the Summer Exhibition, but also the first Japanese to exhibit an oil painting at an overseas exhibition.

Around 1978, he relocated to Paris where he studied oil painting with Léon Bonnat, who was a prominent artist and professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.

Hyakutake briefly returned to Japan a year later before being assigned to Rome as First Secretary of the Japanese Legation in Italy from 1980 to 1982, where he studied under painter Cesare Maccari.

Upon his return to Japan in 1882, he became deputy director of the Trade and Industry Bureau of the Ministry of Agriculture and Trade. Unfortunately, he soon had to retire to his hometown in Saga, suffering from tuberculosis, and died in 1884 at the age of 42. He is said to have left only a small number of works, about 40 pieces.

Although Hyakutake was primarily a government official and had not much interaction with the art community, his works are among the finest Western-style paintings of the early Meiji period due to the academic techniques he learnt firsthand in Europe.

Major works include Mandorin o motsu shōjo (Girl with Mandolin, 1879) and Itaria fūkei (Italian Landscape, 1881-82).