His given name was Minoru Asai. He left Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial School and moved to Tokyo in 1919, studying at the Hongo Institute of Western Painting. In 1926 his work was selected for the Nika exhibition at his first attempt. In 1934 he was selected for the Kofukai and the Teiten. In 1936 “On the Hill” received the Minister of Education’s Prize at the Bunten selection exhibition. After the war he formed the Shinju-kai with Nobuyuki Okochi, Minoru Kawabata and Kokuta Suda and showed energetically. In 1950 he became a judge of the Nitten but did not show there, and left the Kofukai in the same year. From 1952 he showed at the Japan International Art Exhibition and the Contemporary Japanese Art Exhibition. In 1962 he became a member of the Kokusai Keisho-ten. Building up layers of oil paint, he developed an original manner rich in colour; though always in the front rank, he published no book of his work and held almost no solo exhibitions — a singular, untamed painter.