His given name was Shigeru. At about fifteen he studied Japanese painting under Koha Aoki and took the name Shuko. In 1899 he moved to Tokyo and studied under Hanko Kajita, later becoming the senior pupil and teaching Seison Maeda and Togyu Okumura. His work was selected that year for the joint exhibition of the Japan Painting Association and the Japan Art Institute, and he won prizes at almost every one of those regular exhibitions thereafter. In 1907 he became a member of the Tatsumi Gakai, and in 1910 joined the Koji-kai. In 1914, with Seison and Shokan Daichi, he became a member of the Japan Art Institute. In 1922 he travelled to Europe with Seison as a student of the Institute, and at the British Museum in London worked on a copy of the early Tang “Admonitions Scroll”, returning to Japan the following year. With clear, spare works of high dignity — a manner called neo-classical — he wrote a brilliant chapter, the art of Kokei, into the history of modern Japanese painting. He received the Order of Culture in 1950 and was named a Person of Cultural Merit in 1951.