Utagawa Yoshimori (歌川芳盛; 1830 - 1884) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist of the Utagawa School in the late Tokugawa and early Meiji periods. He was a pupil of Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳; 1798 - 1861) from a young age and, like his master, worked in a wide range of genres, excelling particularly in battle scenes (which often served as cover for political satire). Born as Taguchi Sakuzō, Yoshimori employed many pseudonyms and pen names throughout his career despite being among the most prominent ukiyo-e artists of his day. Yoshimori resided in Edo for most of his working life. However, he traveled frequently to Yokohama after its opening as a port for foreign trade, and he eventually relocated there late in life. Yoshimori may have become a member of the Japanese Diet or a civil servant in the civil service after the Meiji Restoration, but sources are divided on this (likely due to his mysterious identity, low profile, and many pseudonyms). Yoshimori is an elusive and contradictory figure; on the one hand, he became an early practitioner of the Yokohama-e (横浜絵) genre, depicting foreigners and foreign things in Japan. But later in life, he also became affiliated with the Nanga 'Southern Painting' School (南画) that drew influence from traditional Chinese paintings and intellectual culture, which was about as far away from Yokohama-e as an artist could get at the time. At the end of his life, he was in Yokohama, producing Japanese-style flower and bird paintings, which his master, Kuniyoshi, was known for, but now intending them for export to Europe and America. His disciples included Utagawa Yoshimori II (二代目 歌川芳盛, c. 1864 - 1895?) and Utagawa Koyomori (歌川小芳盛, dates unknown).
