Dates unknown. Ukiyo-e artist of Edo. He made a startling debut in 1794 with large-head actor likenesses published by Tsutaya Juzaburo, and went on issuing nishiki-e, chiefly actor prints, through Tsutaya — but all of it falls within about ten months, and nothing is known of him afterwards. Why Tsutaya published so much by an unknown newcomer, and why the work stopped so soon, have made him a standing puzzle; the names of Katsushika Hokusai, Kitagawa Utamaro, the writer Jippensha Ikku and the haiku poet Tani Sogai, among many others, have been put forward as his real identity, and the question remains unsettled. His actors are recognisable at a glance, each one’s features strangely exaggerated. Actor prints until then had been grounded in likeness but idealised by the artist; Sharaku did not idealise, and set down even an actor’s ugliness, calmly, as part of what made him himself.