He graduated from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1952 and studied under Seison Maeda. From 1967 he took part in the reproduction of the wall paintings of the Kondo at Horyu-ji. Many of his works take Buddhist subjects or the Buddhist remains of the Silk Road. He proposed a “Red Cross for cultural property” and contributed to the protection of the cultural heritage of the Silk Road; at the root of this work lay his own memory of the atomic bombing. In 1996 he became chairman of the Japan Art Institute, and in 1998 received the Order of Culture. At the end of 2000 he completed the “Wall Paintings of the Western Regions of the Great Tang” for the Genjo-sanzoin hall at Yakushi-ji in Nara.