Painter in oils and calligrapher; his given name was Katsusaburo. Self-taught, he received special prizes three times at the Nitten and Bunten before the war. Influenced by the abstract painter Saburo Hasegawa, he worked in abstraction after the war and was highly regarded at home and abroad. In time he became deeply absorbed in calligraphy as well, working widely across abstraction, figuration and the brush. From 1971, making the illustrations for Ryotaro Shiba’s “Kaido wo Yuku”, he opened new ground in figurative painting and formed a deep friendship with Shiba. Taking as the pillar of his thought the “Shobogenzo” of Dogen, founder of Soto Zen, he left a body of work at once pure and full of rough energy. Member of the Kofukai and of the Kokugakai. Recipient of the Nishinomiya Citizens’ Culture Prize, the Hyogo Prefecture Culture Prize and the Osaka Culture Prize. He died in Kobe at the age of eighty-four.