the theater, where he was a backstage regular. His appearance said to be shabby. He was constantly in debt and often borrowed money from the kabuki actors he depicted so admiringly. A contemporary said of him: "Print designing, theater and drinking were his life and for him that was enough." A contemporary actor, Matsusuke IV, said that when visiting actors backstage for the purpose of sketching them, Kunichika would not socialize but would concentrate intensely on his work. Around 1897, his older brother opened the Arakawa Photo shop, and Kunichika worked in the store. Because Kunichika had a dislike for both the store and photography, only one photograph of him exists. In October 1898 Kunichika was interviewed for a series of four articles about him, The Meiji-period child of Edo, which appeared in the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. In the introduction to the series, the reporter wrote: ...his house is located on the (north) side of Higashi Kumagaya-Inari. Although his residence is just a partitioned tenement house, it has an elegant, latticed door, a nameplate and letterbox. Inside, the entry...leads to a room with worn tatami mats upon which a long hibachi has been placed. The space is also adorned with a Buddhist altar. A cluttered desk stands at the back of the miserable two-tatami room; it is hard to believe that the well-known artist Kunichika lives here...Looking around with a piercing gaze and stroking his long white beard, Kunichika talks about the height of prosperity of the Edokko... During the interview, Kunichika claimed to have moved 107 times, but it seems more likely that he moved only ten times. Kunichika died at his home in Honjo (an eastern suburb of Edo) on July 1, 1900 at the age of 65, due to a combination of poor health and bouts of heavy drinking brought on by the death at 39 of his daughter Hana while giving birth to his grandson, Yoshido Ito, some months previously. He was buried at the Shingon Buddhist sect temple of Honryuji in Imado, Asakusa. His grave marker is thought to have been destroyed in a 1923 earthquake, but family members erected a new one in 1974. In old Japan, it had been a common custom for people of high cultural standing to write a poem before death. On Kunichika's grave his poem reads: "Since I am tired of painting portraits of people of this world,