Masaharu Aoyama was born in Saitama prefecture and attended Tokyo School of Fine Arts. Aoyama worked in the Imperial Household Museum until 1939 as a student of ink painting. He also produced self-carved woodblocks prints as a member of the sosaku hanga movement. Some of his work was printed in Ishiyama’s publishing house. He exhibited these Japanese wood prints in the 1936 Teiten and Nihon Sosaku-Hanga Kyokai exhibitions. In the 1950s, Aoyama turned to images of seagulls flying over water. His seal is “Ao” and his signature is “Seiji” because he was also known as Aoyama Seiji.