Printmaker Hiraoki Takahashi, also known as Shotei, was born Matsumoto Katsutaro in Asakusa, Tokyo, Japan on Janury 2, 1871. As a boy he was adopted into the Takahashi family, thereafter known as Katsutaro Takahashi, but he remained a part of the Katsutaro family by apprenticing in painting with his uncle, Matsumoto Fuko. It was his uncle who in 1907 gave him the professional name Shotei.

Beginning at age sixteen Takahashi worked for the Imperial Household Agency's Department of Foreign Affairs, recording through sketches the medals, clothing, and other ceremonial objects of foreign countries. In 1889 he cofounded two paintings societies, Seinen Kaiga Kyokei (Young Men's Picture Association) and Gohyokai (Society of Noticing), with whom he frequently exhibited, and the Hatsuka-Kai (Society of the 20th Day), which included himself, painters Torii Kiyotada, and authors Izumi Kyoka and Ozaki Koyo, collaborating on various multimedia projects. In the meantime he worked as an illustrator for various newspapers and magazines, and was hired as a woodblock artist and lithographer by publishers Okura Shoten and Hokunaki, respectively. Around this time he earned various medals for works he entered in the Tokyo Industrial Exhibitions.

In 1907 he became the first artist to be recruited by Watanabe, creating shinsaku-hanga (souvenir prints) for the studio that would soon dominate the popular woodblock print trade. Through 1923 he created around 500 prints for Watanabe. In September of 1923 the fires caused by the Great Kanto Earthquake decimated the Watanabe studio, completely wiping out Takahashi's woodblocks. He went on to produce another 250 works for Watanabe, but also expanded to work an artist and chief editor for the ukiyo-e publisher Fusui Gabo. He found more creative freedom with Fusui, creating some of his most well known views of Mt. Fuji and images of nude women until about 1932 when he appears to have retired from the studio. There are prints dated well after this, and he may have continued making prints until 1945, the year of his death.

He died of pneumonia on February 11, 1945 in Tokyo.

A note on his name: Takahashi signed his work Shotei from 1907 to 1922, when he adopted the Hiraoki names and Komei, using the former more frequently.