Biography

Painter/Manga artist. Born in Matsuyama City. In 1911, moved to Kitakyushu City with his father, and spent his teens in Moji. After traveling between Moji and Tokyo for a period, from the 1920s, he based his activity in Tokyo. He was active as a forerunner of the new art movements during the Taisho period (1912–26), including the founding of the radical avant-garde group “Mavo” in 1923, along with such artists as Tomoyoshi Murayama. In the latter half of the 1920s, he became deeply involved in the Proletarian Art movement. He was multitalented in a wide range of fields. Namely, aside from oil paintings, he worked in such media as: social commentary caricatures and manga, which were published in the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper; book-cover illustrations; stage designs; illustrations for children’s picture magazines; photography; and haiku. In 1945, he was killed in an air raid towards the end of WWII.