Jakuchu Ito was a painter from the mid- to late-Edo period whose popularity has exploded worldwide since the beginning of the 2000s. Jakuchu's representative works include the Doshoku Sai-e (Colorful Realm of Living Beings), Chrysanthemum Flowers and Flowers in a Stream, the Rokuonji Great Shoin wall painting of grapes, and many others. Jakuchu is an indispensable figure for TOYOWADO, and we are working on his restoration together with Hosomi Art Museum, which has a large collection of Jakuchu's works.

Jakuchu was born in 1716 as the eldest son of a greengrocery wholesaler in Nishiki Market. He spent his childhood surrounded by the delicacies of the sea and the mountains, and in his mid-teens he studied under Shunboku Ooka, who was a student of the Kano school. However, he did not seem to be accustomed to the rigorous teachings of the Kano school, and was attracted to the Sung Yuan paintings from China, which he copied enthusiastically and learnt the techniques.

Unfortunately, when Jakuchu was 23 years old, his father died suddenly. During these days, Jakuchu met Daiten Zenji, a learned Zen master who excelled in all aspects of arts and sciences, and was recognised for his talent for painting, which led Jakuchu to take refuge in Zen. When he was 40 years old, he gradually handed over the reigns of the family to his younger brother and moved to Shokokuji Temple, with the aim of establishing himself as a painter.

Jakuchu soon showed the artistic talent that he had honed in his own unique way. There he worked on the 'Doshoku Sai-e (Colorful Realm of Living Beings)', a series of paintings of flowers and birds in which he painstakingly depicted plants and animals using an abundance of the finest mineral pigments.

Later, when the "Doshoku Sai-e" was exhibited at Shokoku-ji Temple, it astonished the people of Kyoto, and the painter Jakuchu's name became widely known. He donated the paintings to Shokoku-ji Temple, where they have been carefully preserved and handed down to the present day.

In his fifties, Jakuchu showed his talent for prints and ink paintings, which were flourishing in Edo, but the number of works he produced in his fifties and sixties was drastically reduced compared to the previous years. The reason for this is that he held the important position of machi nenyori (town elder) in Nishiki Market. Surprisingly, Jakuchu played a part in the prosperity of today's Nishiki Market. In his 70s, Jakuchu lost his house to the Great Fire of Tenmei. He went to Osaka with his old friend, Kimura Kenkado, who was a well-known literary figure, collector and hobbyist. Jakuchu, freed from everything, went on to create even more innovative works.

In his late seventies, he began to flee the secular world and retired to Sekiho-ji Temple. Jakuchu lived his life as it was under the name 'Tobei'an', which means 'to exchange rice for paintings', and he painted many unique works in the course of his many paintings, until his death in 1800, at the age of 85.