Sadanobu Futai (1917 - 1988) was born in Japan. He became a resident of Mizonuki Home, a facility that opened in the Kyoto Prefecture in 1964 to lodge mentally challenged adults. We have but scant information about him. He experienced several traumatizing events, including being drafted as a soldier during World War II. He also fought in the Sino-Japanese War, and in several skirmishes in the Philippines and in Birmania. Deeply shaken by these events, he went on to be diagnosed as schizophrenic, and to suffer alternating periods of depression and mania.

His works feature mostly minimistically depicted trees and stones, which he would first delineate in wax crayon flatly spread across the sheet.  His supports as a whole are divided into several colored surfaces.  His choice of colors is highly inventive: lacking any naturalist justification, his chromatic palette and color shade saturation vary according to his state of mind at the time of creation.