Ryōnosuke Shimomura was born in 1923 (Taishō 12) in Osaka into a family of Noh performers. His birth name was Ryōnosuke. His father was a Noh musician of the Ōkura school, performing the ōtsuzumi (large hand drum). Under his father’s guidance, Shimomura began studying Noh chanting and dance at the age of five.
In 1935 (Shōwa 10), at the age of twelve, he moved to Kyoto. The following year he entered the Kyoto Municipal School of Arts and Crafts. From 1941 (Shōwa 16), he studied at the Kyoto Municipal School of Painting, graduating early due to wartime student mobilization.
In March 1948, in opposition to what they declared to be the decadent anachronism of the Japanese art establishment, the Pan-Real Art Association was founded in Kyoto by young Nihonga artists including Takashi Yamazaki, Makoto Mikami, and Shingo Hoshino. Shimomura, who was seeking new artistic directions, joined the association in October of the same year upon the recommendation of Shingo Hoshino, together with Hidetaka Ōno (also known as Shūkō Ōno).
Shimomura continued to make the Pan-Real exhibitions the central platform for his work throughout his life. Between 1945 and 1955, his style gradually evolved from Cubist-inspired group compositions to a concentrated focus on birds. He developed a distinctive pictorial language characterized by sharp linear drawing executed with a carpenter’s ink line tool (sumitsubo). From the late 1950s onward, he began applying paper clay to build up relief-like surfaces, creating fossil-like forms and ultimately establishing a powerful and highly individual style marked by unique textures.
Ryōnosuke Shimomura passed away on December 30 at a hospital in Kamigyō Ward, Kyoto, due to pulmonary emphysema. He was 75 years old.