author
Yoshio Makino
1874–1956
A Japanese artist and author who made Edwardian London his subject, Yoshio Makino—better known as Yoshio Markino—captured the city’s fog, lights, and bustling streets with warmth and wit. His memoirs offer a lively outsider’s view of artistic life, hardship, and discovery in early twentieth-century London.
1 Audiobook
A Japanese artist in London
by Yoshio Makino
About the author
Yoshio Makino, who often styled his name as Yoshio Markino, was a Japanese painter, illustrator, and writer best known for his atmospheric watercolors of London. After traveling to San Francisco in 1893, he moved to London in 1897 and remained based there for much of his career, becoming part of the city’s Japanese artistic community.
Markino’s misty views of London, with their glowing streetlights and rain-darkened streets, brought him public attention in the early 1900s. He also wrote several autobiographical works, including The Colour of London and A Japanese Artist in London, which combine personal memories, humor, and observations on life between Japanese and British cultures.
He returned to Japan during the Second World War and spent his later years there. His art and writing remain valued for the distinctive way they blend Japanese visual sensibility with an affectionate, highly personal portrait of London.