Ken Tagawa was born in Nagasaki. In 1924 he graduated at the Nagasaki Business school. He moved to Tokyo, where he learned woodblock printing from Onchi Kôshirô. He made his first woodblocks in 1932. Then, in 1934, he returned to Nagasaki, where he founded a Nagasaki print association. He was instrumental in the publication of Hanga Nagasaki.
In 1941 he became a member of the Nihon Hanga Kyôkai. During the war he once more founded a print society, this time in Shanghai. In 1945 he returned to Japan, and in 1949 to Nagasaki. In 1956 he received the Nagasaki culture award. Influenced by the work of Sumio Kawakami, he also produced a number of scenes of Nagasaki.
