Utagawa Hiroshige (Born 1797) also called Ando Hiroshige, was the second of the two great masters of the Japanese landscape woodblock print. He is particularly known for his scenes featuring rain and snow, which feature in many of his most famous and best images, and which has led to him being referred to as the artist of snow, rain and mist. He originally intended to follow the career of his father, a fire-watchman but after his parents' death in 1809 he gravitated toward the art world, an inclination which his father had encouraged. Come 1811, Hiroshige became a pupil of Toyohiro, a woodblock artist who had been a fellow-pupil with Tokokuni the great woodblock master. In 1812, the orphaned Hiroshige was formally adopted into the Utagawa School, with the name Utagawa Hiroshige. He continued to hold his post as a fire-watchman until 1823.
In the early 1830s, Hiroshige started to discover himself as an artist, changing his signature to Ichiyusai and starting on the landscapes which became his forte. His first landscape series was in 1830. It was entitled "Eight Famous Views of Omi", and was followed by a 10-print series called the "Famous Places of the Eastern Capital", which marked the first revelations of Hiroshige's true genius in addition to showing the influence of Hokusai. Outside his own little circle of customers and friends he was a man of small importance in Japan. It is only framed Utagawa Hiroshige art has begun to gain its great and growing reputation in America and Europe that he is beginning to be appreciated in his own country.