He started his career working for the export company of , which gave him an opportunity to learn about exporting art prints. In 1908, Watanabe married Chiyo, a daughter of the woodblock carver Chikamatsu. Watanabe employed highly skilled carvers and printers, and commissioned artists to design prints that combined traditional Japanese techniques with elements of contemporary Western painting, such as perspective and shadows. Watanabe coined the term
shin-hanga in 1915 to describe such prints. ,
Hashiguchi Goyō,
Charles W. Bartlett,
Itō Shinsui,
Kawase Hasui,
Ito Takashi,
Yoshida Hiroshi,
Kasamatsu Shirō,
Torii Kotondo,
Ohara Koson,
Tsuchiya Koitsu and
Yamakawa Shūhō are among the artists whose works he published. Much of his company's stockpile of both prints and their original printing-blocks was destroyed in the
Great Kantō earthquake of 1923. In the following years, new versions of many of these prints were created, using re-carved blocks; typically, the re-issued "post-quake" prints included changes and revisions in the designs. Watanabe exported most of his
shin-hanga prints to the United States and Europe due to a lack of Japanese interest. After the close of
World War II, his heirs continued the business, which still operates. Watanabe designed two prints himself under the name "Kako":
Sunset Glow at West Park in Fukuoka and
Lake Kawaguchi. File:Avondgloed in het Nishi park in Fukuoka Fukuoka nishi koen no yusho (titel op object), RP-P-1994-1.jpg|
Sunset Glow at West Park in Fukuoka, 1936 File:Het meer Kawaguchi Kawaguchiko (titel op object), RP-P-1994-2.jpg|
Lake Kawaguchi, 1937 ==References==