Essentially a self-taught artist, Takeuchi Keishû was introduced to Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, who promptly made him a pupil and gave him the gô (name) Toshisuke, though that had not been Keishû's intention when he went there. Still, his name appears on the Yoshitoshi memorial, indicating that he considered himself a Yoshitoshi student.
In the early 1890s he started making kuchi-e (magazine frontispices). He was involved with kuchi-e as long as they were published, i.e. 1920's. In his later years he started making Saga dolls and collecting dolls of all kinds. In 1937 the mother of emperor Hirohito asked him to make a painting of court dolls for her.
