SwissArtGallery · Documented identity

Eisaku Wada

The Japanese painter Eisaku Wada, born in 1874 and deceased in 1959, trained in Western painting under Uesugi Kumatsu, then at the Daikōkan School with Soyama Sachihiko. From 1894, he studied under Kuroda Seiki and Kume Keiichirō at the Tenshin Dōjō, where he became familiar with plein-air painting. In 1896, he joined Kuroda and Kume in founding the Hakuba-kai, or White Horse Society, and presented nineteen works at its first exhibition. His graduation work, Evening at the Ferry Crossing (1897), is held at the University Art Museum of the Tokyo University of the Arts.

Representative works also include Thoughts of Home and Kodama, both dated 1902. At the fourth National Industrial Exhibition, Early Summer Beside the Sea received an award for virtuosity. Wada’s painting also includes numerous floral still lifes, notably roses, as well as several views of Mount Fuji. Kodama (1902) is listed in the collections of the Sen-oku Hakuko Kan, while Roses, dated around 1926, is held in the collections of the Pola Museum of Art.

Returning to Japan via Italy in 1903, Wada was appointed a professor at his former institution. In 1911, he painted the ceiling of the Imperial Theatre and created murals for its dining room; in 1914, he painted murals for the Akasaka Detached Palace and Tokyo Station. In 1936, he completed Ceremony for the Promulgation of the Constitution for the Meiji Memorial Picture Gallery. From 1940, he took part for three years in copying the murals of the kondō at Hōryū-ji.

His career combined artistic practice with institutional responsibilities: a member of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts from 1919, he became president of the Tokyo Academy of Fine Arts in 1932, leaving the post in 1936 before being appointed professor emeritus. He became a member of the Imperial Art Academy in 1937. He received the Order of Culture in 1943 and was recognised as a Person of Cultural Merit in 1951. Solo exhibitions were devoted to him at Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi in 1929, 1936 and 1941. Several retrospectives later traced his work, including exhibitions at the Shizuoka Prefectural Museum of Art in 2002 and the Kagoshima City Museum of Art in 2014.

This profile brings together identity references for Eisaku Wada and paintings, drawings and works on paper documented in auction catalogues.

1 references are documented at Dobiaschofsky. Each record links to its source; the amounts are not a general valuation of the artist’s work.

Works recorded at auction

Dobiaschofsky

Autumn forest

Oil on canvas

Original catalogue wording

Herbstlicher Wald.
Öl auf Leinwand

Date to be documented

Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed

View the lot at the auction house ↗

Sources and references

• Reference record
• LoC · Public domain (id.loc.gov authority metadata; link only)
• NDL · NDL Terms of Use (source attribution)
• Documentary source

SwissArtGallery documentary note based on the cited sources. Titles, media and qualifications are provided in the profile language; the original catalogue wording remains available in each record.
Documentation updated : 2026-10-19