Born in Tochigi Prefecture. After studying at Seijo School in Tokyo, he failed to pass the military academy entrance exam. In 1907, he moved to Seattle to study painting at the Fokko Tadama School of Painting; in 1917, he moved to New York to study at the National Academy of Design and then at the Art Students League under Kenneth Hayes Miller and John Sloan.He displayed at the Society of Independent Artists from 1919 to 1924, and the Salons of America in 1922.  His painting “Yokohama Night,” depicting Yokohama, where he stayed during a temporary marriage in 1920, was selected for the Chicago Art Institute’s annual exhibition in 1921, but the award was withdrawn because he was Japanese.He participated in the exhibition of the Gacho Kai in 1922 and the exhibition of Japanese Art, sponsored by New York Shimpo in 1927.

 In 1923, he had a solo exhibition at the Blumer Gallery; in 1924, he traveled to France with the painter Katsumi Miyake and was selected for the Paris Salon; from 1932, he served as a military painter in Japan in China and the South. He died in 1945 at his birthplace in Tochigi Prefecture, where he had been evacuated.

Reference: Musashino Cultural Foundation, Toshi Shimizu, (exhibition catalogue), Musashino Civic Cultural Hall (1991); Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Toshi Shimizu, (exhibition catalogue), Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts (1996); Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, Toshi Shimizu, Collection of Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, (exhibition catalogue), Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts (2007); Tochigi Museum of Art, Toshi  Shimizu, Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Art (2007); Tochigi Kura no Machi Art Museum, Toshi Shimizu,  (exhibition catalogue); Tochigi Kura no Machi Art Museum,(2016); New York Shimpo; Nichibei Jiho.

The subject of this entry was featured in one of our digital exhibits, “Japanese Artists During the Prewar Period in New York City- Artistic Trace from the 1910s to the 1940s –”.