On Thursday, May 26, 1921, a Western-style painter, Kinkichiro Honda died at his home in Iriyamazu, Omori, Ota-ku (Taisho 10). He was 70 years old. Honda was born in 1851 (Kaei 3) and is a former feudal retainer of Hiroshima Domain. He entered the Western studies school (Shudo Junior and Senior High Schools), a domain school in Hiroshima, and studied Western military science. He learned English from Fumio Nomura, who was a professor of Western studies at the time. Later, as a journalist, Nomura launched a satirical magazine called “Marumaru Chinbun” and was also active as a Freedom and People’s Rights Activist.
Honda went to Tokyo after the Hiroshima clan was abolished by Haihan-chiken (Meiji 6), studied English at Keio Gijuku, and entered the survey school of the Ministry of Industry in 1973, but his talent for painting was recognized by Richard Oliver Rymer Jones, who was a surveying teacher there. In the following year of 1874 (Meiji 7), Honda joined Tamaaki KAWABATA and became a full-fledged Western-style painter. In addition to his Western-style paintings, he was also active in caricatures and landscape gardening and showed his multi-talented abilities.
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