Sawaki Suushi
Sawaki Suushi (佐脇 嵩之, 1707 – 31 July 1772[1]) was a relatively unknown Japanese painter who studied under the master Hanabusa Itchō, and is famous for his Hyakkai Zukan painting series.[2] His only known work, the Hyakkai Zukan (or "The Illustrated Volume of a Hundred Demons"), is a collection of 30 picture scrolls finished by Suushi in 1737, during the Edo period of Japan. The scrolls feature supernatural bestiaries, collections of ghosts, spirits and monsters, which Suushi based on literature, folklore, and other other legends. Hyakkai Zukan's colorful depictions of Japan's most notorious creatures inspired yokai artists for generations.[3] According to generic views of historians, it is quite possible that without Suushi's work, many of the details of the traditional appearances of these folk monsters would have been lost to later generations.[4]