He was the pupil of Torii Kiyomitsu and for a time headed the Torii school. So great, however, was his loyalty to the Torii family that he made his own son, a young painter with promise, stop painting in order not to interfere with the career of his master's nephew Torii Kiyomine.

Kiyonaga concentrated on the depiction of famous beauties. He designed many large nishiki-e, or polychrome prints, in diptych (two-panel) and triptych (three-panel) formats. Women in his prints were tall and stately, drawn with elegantly graceful lines in a realistic style. His best known works are “Minami jūniko” (“Twelve Months at the Gay Quarters”), “Tōsei yūri bijin awase” (“A Contest of Fashionable Beauties of the Gay Quarters”), and “Fūzoku azuma no nishiki” (“Life of Women Not Belonging to the Gay Quarters”).