Born 1919 in Osaka, MIKAMI grew up in Fukui Prefecture. He graduated in 1944 from the Kyoto City School of Painting (now Kyoto City University of Arts), and formed Pan-Real Art Association in 1948 together with HOSHINO Shingo, YAGI Kazuo, SUZUKI Osamu and others, to oppose the established art scene in Kyoto. Combining collage and frottage with Nihonga, and relying on cardboard, wood and other unconventional materials, MIKAMI created geometrical compositions of a highly individualistic tone. He succumbed to Tuberculosis at the age of 52 in 1974.

In 1999, we started to publish the journal “Hanga Shoshi” to introduce outstanding contemporary artists, and excavate works forgotten from the meandering courses of art history. In each number, we would feature one living and one dead artist. In the first issue we included ONO Takao and MIKAMI Makoto. We knew that MIKAMI had ventured into copperplate printing, and that those unpublished plates still existed. In short, we organized a retrospective, and included new prints from those plates into "Hanga Shoshi" Vol.1. These monochrome works doubtlessly reflect MIKAMI’s aspirations and passion for the renewal of Nihonga.