Printmaker Katsuyuki Nishijima was born in Yamaguchi Province, Japan, in 1945. Following graduation from high school he studied moku hanga woodblock orintmaking at the Mikumo publishing house in Kyoto, from 1964 to 1968.

Nishijima was a member of the Kyoto Independents art collective and exhibited with them from 1965 to 1970, and in the early 1970s he experiemented with stencil dying and printing. He became known for his romantic, sosaku-hanga woodblock prints which featured traditional Japanese architecture, street scenes, and landscapes that did not include people and rarely depicted objects of modernity (cars, trains, etc.).