Eisen Tomioka was born in Nagano prefecture with the given name of Hidetaro. He went to Tokyo with the intention of becoming a full-time artist. But first he took a post as a civilian employee with the Japanese army to make a living.

Later he resigned from this post to study art with Kobayashi Eitaku. He worked as an illustrator. During the late Meiji period publishers of newspapers, journals and book used to sell their products with supplements of woodblock prints. These prints are called kuchi-e and were created using the traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking techniques.

Eisen Tomioka died at a young age of 41 years, when he was about to fulfill his great dream: becoming what he considered to be a 'real' artist - a recognised painter.