Born in Edo. His family name was Fujiwara; he was called Yosuke at first and later Yusuke. He studied under Miyagawa Shunsui. Until then actor prints had been the province of the Torii school, which took little interest in likeness: the play, the role and the actor were to be identified from the costume and the properties. Ehon Butai Ogi, published in 1770 by Shunsho and Ippitsusai Buncho together, set out instead to catch the actor’s face as it was, and it was a turning point. Actor prints of this kind are distinguished from the older manner as yakusha-e nigao-e, actor likenesses. After Buncho’s death the field was taken over entirely by Shunsho and his pupil Katsukawa Shunko. From the Tenmei era in his later years he painted one fine bijinga after another: full of dignity, without a trace of the fleshly, clear and unaffected instead. The sharebon of 1775, Tosei Onna Fuzoku Tsu, has the line “a single Shunsho is worth a thousand in gold” — dear, and enormously popular. He produced a great many bijinga, and almost all of them are of a high order.