Kiyoshi Hamada graduated from Tama Art University in 1961 with a degree in oil painting. His work has been included in numerous museum exhibitions in Japan, among them Prints in Japan (Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, 1985), Expression of Line: Where Eye and Hand Lead (The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, 1991), and Printmaking in the 1970s (Shoto Museum of Art, Shibuya, 1996). In 2015 he was the subject of the solo exhibition The Trajectory of Kiyoshi Hamada: Layering, Carving, Painting. In 2025, Hamada was the subject of a major retrospective, Kiyoshi Hamada: Journey — 1975 and onward, at The Museum of Art, Kochi, in his native prefecture, surveying a half century of his practice. His works are held in major collections including the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, the Art Institute of Chicago,