Yasui Sōtarō

Yasui Sōtarō (born May 17, 1888, Kyōto—died Dec. 10, 1959, Tokyo) was a Japanese painter who excelled in drawing in the Western style. He was particularly famous for his portraits.

The son of a wholesale cotton-goods merchant, Yasui began to study painting in 1904 at the Shōgoin Institute of Western Art (which later became the Kansai Bijutsuin [Fine Arts Academy of Western Japan]) under its founder, Asai Chū. In 1907 he went to France, where he remained until 1914, except for occasional trips to Holland, Italy, Spain, and other European countries. In France he continued his study of painting, at first formally and later on his own. He was particularly influenced by the work of Gustave Courbet and Paul Cézanne. Upon his return to Japan he held a successful exhibition of 40-odd paintings and drawings. He gradually loosened himself from the overwhelming influence of the French masters and developed a more individual style based on painstaking sketches and with a frequently decorative composition, especially in portrait paintings. Among his representative works are “Nude Washing Her Feet” (1913), “Paulownia Blossoms” (1924), “Woman With a Fan” (1929), “Seoul” (1938), and “At the Studio” (1951).