The daughter of a Shintô priest, Naoko Matsubara graduated at the Design department of Kyoto University of Applied Arts (Kyoto Geijutsu Daigaku) in 1960. After her graduation she met Munakata Shikô, became a member of the Bangain, founded by him, and met many of his pupils and associates. She became deeply influenced by him, and he praised her work for its intensity and expressiveness.
From 1961 she has mainly lived outside Japan, where she both studied and taught (a.o. at the Pratt Graphic Art Center in New York in 1965-66). Her position in the history of Japanese woodblock prints was recognized in the exhibition Mokuhan: woodcuts by Munakata and Matsubara at the Art Gallery of Great Victoria in 1976. At the moment she lives in Ontario, Canada.
