Hiroshi Senju

I'll be honest, I went in expecting Nihonga to feel like a museum lecture, and then Hiroshi Senju's waterfalls just stopped me cold. There's something almost ridiculous about how he makes pigment poured down a pitch-black surface read as actual falling water, light, even sound, and yet it works on me every time. What I love is how unfussy it feels coming from a guy who went through Keio and the Tokyo University of the Arts, basically art-world royalty, because nothing about the paintings struts. They feel humble, like he's been standing in front of a cliff listening for decades and just trying to get the silence right. I don't fully understand the technique and I kind of don't want to. I'd happily stand in one of his rooms and say nothing at all.

Hiroshi Senju is a Japanese nihonga (Japanese-style) painter born on January 7, 1958, in Izumi, Tokyo. He studied at Keio Senior High School and went on to graduate from Tokyo University of the Arts. He is recognized for his large-scale waterfall paintings, and has received the Imperial Prize and the Japan Art Academy Prize, among other honors.

Name (English)

Hiroshi Senju

Name (Japanese)

千住博

Reading

せんじゅ ひろし

Born

January 7, 1958 (age 68)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Dog

Origin

Izumi, Tokyo, Japan

Occupation

Painter / Artist

High school

Keio Senior High School

University

Tokyo University of the Arts

Awards & achievements

• Imperial Prize (year unknown)
• Japan Art Academy Prize (year unknown)
• Blue Ribbon Medal (Konshuhosho) (year unknown)

• Official sitehttps://www.hiroshisenju.com/
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%83%E4%BD%8F%E5%8D%9A
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5771042

Tags

• From Tokyo
• Painter
• Artist

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.