In 1881 he entered the studio of Bairei Kono of the Shijo school and was given the art name Seiho (written with the character for “dwelling”). In 1887 he completed the northern-school course of the Kyoto Prefectural Painting School and set up as a painter. From 1889 he was a teacher at the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts, and around this time won prizes at many exhibitions. He travelled to Europe in 1900, and on returning the following year changed the writing of his name to Seiho (with the character for “perch”). When the Bunten was founded in 1907 he served as a judge every year from the first exhibition, and his own ambitious entries drew attention. He also travelled to China twice, in 1920 and 1921, to seek the sources of Eastern painting; his best-known work, the Important Cultural Property “Tabby Cat”, was painted after that. As the leading figure of the Kyoto painting world he left many fine works and brought on gifted pupils, contributing greatly to the modernisation of Japanese painting. He also took pains over his materials, devising the “Seiho paper”. In 1937, with Taikan Yokoyama, he received the first Order of Culture.