Born on a small island, Masao Obata was barely two years old at the time of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After his parents divorced, he was raised by his mother. He held numerous menial jobs, which he had to abandon due to psychological difficulties. After his mother’s death, he joined his father in Kobe, but following his father’s death three years later, he was once again placed in a care institution.
Although Obata’s life was marked by repeated institutionalizations, it was also driven by an unshakeable determination to draw. He devoted all his time to this activity, and his living space quickly became so crowded that there was barely room to sleep. When the institution closed in 2007, he was transferred to another facility in Kobe, where he died three years later.
His work—drawings made on reclaimed cardboard, always in a war-red colored pencil—was discovered by the painter Kaii Higashiyama, who introduced it to the public. It is now held in various public collections.