Kunisada is regarded as one of the giants of Japanese printing. While not much is known about the details of Kunisada's life, there are some consolidated records of particular events. He was born in 1786 in Honjo, an eastern district of Edo. His name was Sumida Shogoro IX, and he was also called Sumida Shozo. A small ferry service belonged to his family, and the income from this business provided him with some basic financial security. His father, who was an amateur poet of some repute, died the year after his birth. Growing up, he developed an early talent for painting and drawing. His early drawings at the time impressed Toyokuni, the great teacher of the Utagawa school and prominent designer of kabuki and actor portrait prints. In 1800 or shortly after, Kunisada was accepted by Toyokuni I as an apprentice in his workshop. In keeping with a tradition of Japanese master-apprentice relations, he was then given the official artistic name of KUNI-sada; the first part of the name is derived from the second part of Toyo-KUNI. The first known print of him dates back to the year 1807; other normal sized prints appear from 1809 to 1810. By 1808 he had already started working as an illustrator of ehon (woodblock prints of picture books) and his popularity rapidly increased. In 1809 he was referred to in contemporary sources as a star attraction of the Utagawa school, and soon thereafter he was regarded as at least equal to his teacher Toyokuni in the field of book illustration. Kunisada's first portraits of actors appeared in 1808 or 1809. It is known that his first bijinga series and a series of pentaptychs of urban Edo scenes appear simultaneously in 1809. Until 1813 he had risen as a star in the constellation of Edo of the artistic world; a contemporary list of the most important ukiyo-e artists places him second behind Toyokuni I. Kunisada remained one of the trendsetters of Japanese woodcut until his death in early 1865. From about 1810 Kunisada used the name Gototei, which refers to his father's ferry-boat business. Until 1842 this signature appeared on almost all of his kabuki designs. Around 1825 the studio name Kochoro appeared, and it was often used on prints not related to kabuki.