The large elongated heads of beautiful women (bijin okubi-e) depicted by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) somehow fascinated Ivan Lam to attempt a homage, drawing in large tracts of kanji featured on the image’s left for good measure – design and a kind of patterning.

Utamaro borrowed from the Katsukawa School stock of long face, long neck, slim shoulders and unusually large coiffure. His works were among those other famous ukiyo-e artists of Edo Japan who had a great influence on the Impressionists like Van Gogh and Gauguin.

Utamaro was doing well but ran afoul of the all-supreme daimyo, the military ruler Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and was imprisoned for making illegal prints of him, and he died in 1806, two years later. Utamaro was ...