Niizuma Minoru was born in Tokyo and studied at the National Tokyo University of Arts. He taught at the Seijo School and became a member of the Modern Art Association, an artists' cultural society. In 1959 Niizuma moved to New York City where he taught at the Brooklyn Museum School and at Columbia University. He is the founder of the Stone Institute of New York, an organization that sponsors international exhibitions, and he advises the Stone Sculpture Center of Iwate, Japan.

Castle of the Eye, a 1964 Niizuma marble, was included in an influential traveling group exhibition organized by New York's Museum of Modern Art in 1965. Similar in format to the piece offered here, it became part of the Museum's permanent collection and the exhibition introduced a significant number of contemporary Japanese artists to America.

Solo exhibitions of Niizuma's work have been held at the Seibu Museum in Tokyo in 1976, the Umeda Museum of Modern Art in Oskaka in 1977, the Contemporary Sculpture Centers in Tokyo and Osaka in 1979, Galerie Nichido in Tokyo in 1989, and in New York at the Howard Wise Gallery in 1966 and 1968, Gimpel & Weitzenhoffer 1972-74, 1977 and 1979, and in Los Angeles at the Meckler Gallery in 1983, 1986, and 1989. In 1986 Niizuma had a one-man exhibition in Lisbon, Portugal at the Gulbenkian Museum. His work is included in museum collections worldwide.