Born into a samurai family at the Edo residence of Sano domain (Tochigi). His family served as instructors of swordsmanship, and Yuichi trained in martial arts as heir, but from early childhood he loved to draw.
Around this time he studied traditional Japanese painting under an artist of the Kanō school. Partly because he was sickly, he came to hope to make his way as a painter rather than as a swordsman.
Around this time he saw a Western lithograph and was deeply struck by how lifelike it was. From then on, learning Western painting became his lifelong goal.
He joined the painting section of the Bansho Shirabesho, the shogunate's institute for Western studies, and studied under Kawakami Tōgai. But there was no teacher who could really paint in oils, so he kept researching by trial and error.
He became a pupil of Charles Wirgman, a British artist living in Yokohama, and for the first time learned proper oil painting technique.
He painted The Oiran, a portrait of a Yoshiwara courtesan. The model is said to have cried in anger on seeing the finished work, protesting that her face did not look like that. It shows Yuichi's insistence on depicting things exactly as they are.
He opened a painting school, the Tenkairō, in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, and taught oil painting to many pupils. The same year he sent work to the Vienna World's Fair.
He received instruction from Antonio Fontanesi, an Italian painter invited to teach at the Technical Fine Arts School, and further polished his skills. Though by then in his late forties, Yuichi kept studying eagerly.
Around this time he painted Salmon, showing a salted salmon hanging from a rope. Rendering in fine detail even the texture of the flesh and the sheen of the skin, it is now an Important Cultural Property.
He exhibited at an exposition held at Kotohira-gū shrine in Kagawa and dedicated many works to the shrine. They can still be seen today in the shrine's Takahashi Yuichi Museum.
He brought out Gayū Sekichin, considered Japan's first art magazine. The next year he also announced a plan for a museum to display oil paintings, the Rasen Tengakaku.
At the request of Mishima Michitsune, governor of Yamagata, he painted records of great tunnel and road construction projects. He later did similar work in Fukushima and Tochigi.
He died in Tokyo. Having learned Western painting by trial and error and laid the foundations of Japanese oil painting, Yuichi is called a pioneer of modern Western-style painting in Japan.
Matsuura TakeshirōIwakura TomomiWilliam S. ClarkKanō HōgaiSoejima TaneomiNishi AmaneYuri KimimasaŌkubo Toshimichi
People of the Meiji period ・ People by period
Based on facts found in textbooks and biographies. Uncertain points are marked as such.