Shinsuke Notomi was born in Shanghai in 1942. He came to the United States in 1962, studied at the Art Student League in New York, and then earned a BA and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at the California College of Arts & Crafts in San Francisco. He taught art at Indiana State University from 1972 to 1974, and then traveled to Peru and Bolivia to study Inca art in South America. He returned to Japan in 1975 and has been involved in a wide range of activities since. Notomi is a direct descendant of the Japanese industrialist Yataro Iwasaki and comes from a famed Samurai lineage.