Kitano Tsunetomi was born in Kanazawa in 1880 as Kitano Tomitaro. In 1892, he was sent to Osaka as an apprentice in the studio of Nishida Suketaro, a preparer of "hanshita-e," the preparatory drawings before the woodblocks are carved for prints. He also learned Japanese-style painting and block carving from several artists and teachers. In 1897, he joined the Hokkoku Shinpo newspaper as an engraver and illustrator of serialized novels. In 1902, he returned to Osaka and entered the studio of Inano Toshitsune, a minor artist who had been a student of the great Taiso Yoshitoshi. He changed his name, adopting the kanji for "tsune" in homage to his teacher.
He began working for an Osaka newspaper to secure a steady income and painted portraits of beautiful women (bijin) in a style somewhere between ukiyo-e and traditional painting. He exhibited his work at official salons from 1910 onward and participated in the establishment of the Taisho Art Society in 1912. In 1915, he founded the Osaka Art Society, where he exhibited regularly. In 1917, he was elected to the Japan Fine Arts Institute.
In 1924, he founded an art school in Osaka where he taught painting. His students included Kotani Chigusa (1890–1945), Shima Seien (1892–1970), and Oda Tomiya (1896–1990). He also founded Hakuyodo Publishing House, which published his own works as well as those of his students.
In 1934, he was invited to participate in the mural decoration of the Shotoku Memorial in the Meiji Shrine Park in Tokyo. Tsunetomi's works are generally portraits of women from the fashion or entertainment worlds of the Osaka region and are an important record of that era. Many of his paintings have a raw quality and are characterized by broad brushstrokes. He produced a few prints, adapted from his early paintings. The best known are "Kagami no mae" (Before the Mirror) (1919) and "Sagimusume" (The Heron's Bride) (1925).
