Okano Sakae

Okano Sakae (岡野栄, 1880–1942) was a Japanese Western-style (yōga) painter and illustrator. He graduated from the Western-style painting department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1902, where he studied under Kuroda Seiki, the leading figure of modern Japanese Western-style painting, within the circle of the Hakubakai (White Horse Society). In 1912 he was among the founders of the Kōfūkai, the society that succeeded the Hakubakai, and he taught for many years at Gakushuin Women's College. From 1925 to 1927 he travelled in Europe — chiefly France and Italy — on a research mission for the Imperial Household Agency.

Although trained as a painter, Okano is best remembered as an illustrator. His designs appeared in illustrated books and periodicals of the late Meiji and Taishō periods, among them the multi-volume travel-sketch series Nihon meishō shasei kikō ("Sketches and Travel Notes on Japanese Sights," 1909–1912), Iwaya Sazanami's thirty-five-volume picture-book set Nippon'ichi no Ebanshi (1911–1915), and the children's magazine Yōnen gahō. It is largely through these published illustrations, rather than a body of independently issued single-sheet prints, that his work reached a wide audience.