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Kisai Yamada was born in 1864, in Echigo, Niigata prefecture, Japan.

He learned to carve religious statues from his father and studied painting under Todo Nakajima of the Maruyama school of painting.

Kisai Yamada was a professor at the Tokyo Academy of Fine Arts. Was active during the early Meiji Era.

Since 1889, a great trend of Japanese traditional sculpture expression mainly of wooden sculptures was formed starting from the newly established Tokyo Art School Sculpture Department. Kisai Yamada was one of the main sculptors of this conservative traditional school along with Takamura Koun and Koun’s student Yamazaki Choun. They created their work with realistic expression by traditional techniques from the Edo period, developing their artistic expressions exhibiting in the Nihon Bijutsu Kyokai, Tokyo Chokokai, and from 1907 when the Monbusho Bijutsu Tenrankai (Ministry of Education Art Exhibition) began, they exhibited mainly in the government exhibitions. Many of their motifs were Japanese gods, persons in historical myths, or court and shrine events such as bugaku dances, along with animals and birds.