Early life Takehisa was born in the town of
Oku, which has since been merged into the city of
Setouchi in
Okayama Prefecture, Japan. His childhood home has been preserved and opened to visitors. After struggling to make ends meet doing odd jobs in Tokyo, he eventually enrolled at Waseda Jitsugyō High School, a
college-preparatory school for
Waseda University in September 1902. Takehisa's career doing illustrations began in June 1905 after he won a competition by the magazine
Chugakusekai, owned by
Hakubunkan, one of Japan's leading publishing companies. It was at this time that he adopted the name Yumeji. After he won the competition he began contributing regularly to Hakubunkan. His struggles living in Tokyo endeared him to
socialist causes, and some of his earliest work was featured in the socialist and
anti-war Heimin Shinbun journal
Chokugen. After the
High Treason Incident, a socialist-anarchist plot to assassinate
Emperor Meiji in 1910, many of the people he worked with at the
Heimin Shinbun were arrested and executed. After their divorce, the two opened a store in 1914 that sold various goods featuring Takehisa's designs. Takehisa met his next lover, Hikono Kasai, shortly after the opening of the store. Takehisa left Tokyo for Kyoto in 1916, followed by Kasai the next year. They returned to Tokyo in November 1918. however, the earthquake ruined his business, and it was a setback he did not recover from for several years. Takehisa and Oyo moved in together to a residence outside of Tokyo in 1924; however, Oyo broke off their relationship the next year. Takehisa left Japan to travel to the United States on 7 May 1931 during the decline of the
Taisho Democracy and the rise of the
militarist government. His intention in the United States and later Europe was to gain a larger understanding of Western art trends in order to create an art institute in Japan, a goal he never achieved. He traveled throughout Europe in 1933. In Berlin he lectured twice a week at the art school of
Johannes Itten, a Swiss
expressionist associated with
Bauhaus. Takehisa taught Japanese Painting in Germany from February to June 1933. Troubled by the
rise of Nazism, which reminded him of the Japanese militarists, Takehisa returned to Japan later in 1933. He died in the early morning of 1 September 1934 at the age of 49, several months after being urgently admitted to a sanatorium in
Nagano Prefecture. He is buried in
Zōshigaya Cemetery in the
Ikebukuro area of
Tokyo. ==Significance, style, and themes==