Born in Saitama prefecture, Masaharu Aoyama attended Tokyo School of Fine Arts. A student of ink painting, Aoyama worked in the Imperial Household Museum until 1939. As a printmaker, Aoyama belonged to the Sosaku Hanga movement, producing self-carved woodblocks prints. While he self-printed some of these works, others were printed in Ishiyama’s publishing house. He presented these prints in the 1936 Teiten and Nihon Sosaku Hanga Kyokai exhibitions. In the 1950s, Aoyama focused on images of seagulls flying over water. His prints may be signed “Seiji” (Aoyama is also known as Aoyama Seiji) and sealed “Ao.”