[3] In 1952, a classmate from Keisen Girls' High School introduced Okanoue to poet and art critic Shuzo Takiguichi,[a] a leading figure in the Japanese Surrealist movement, who would help introduce her to the wider art world, including the work of European Surrealists, such as German artist Max Ernst,[5] who was an influence on her subsequent work.
[6] Her black and white photo collages mix images of places, objects and people, often fashionable European women, in dynamic and often unsettling compositions whose subjects explored themes of war, femininity and the relations between the sexes.
In 1958, at only 28, she stopped producing collage work when she married painter Fujino Kazutomo, thought she would continue to draw and paint non-professionally.
[11] Okanoue's early collage work faded into obscurity for 40 years until rediscovered in the 1990s by the curator Ryūichi Kaneko of the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum.
[6] In 1996 Meguro Museum of Art included Okanoue's work in the Light Up exhibition[13] and a solo exhibit entitled "Toshiko Okanoue's Photo Collages: Droplets of Dreams" was presented in Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co. South Gallery.