Her father, Yoshioka Seijiro 吉岡政二郎, was a dealer in Western goods and sundries. Showing an early talent for painting, at the age of 12 she was sent to Seattle, Washington for two years to study Western style (yōga) painting.[2] In 1909 she returned home to attend the elite Osaka Prefectural Shimizudani Girls High School. In July of that same year the Great Kita Fire engulfed her family's Dōjima residence.
While in high school she studied under the guidance of renowned Shijō school painter Fukada Chokujō 深田直城 (1861-1947), known for his kachō-ga (bird and flower paintings). After graduating from high school in 1913, she moved to Tokyo to study under, and live in the household of, the female nihonga painter and occasional woodblock print designer Ikeda Shōen 池田蕉園 (1886-1917), known for her paintings of bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women).
At the age of twenty, in 1915, she returned to Osaka to live with her uncle, Yoshioka Jūsaburō 吉岡重三郎 (1883-1974), a prominent figure in Osaka's entrepreneurial circles, who played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Takarazuka Revue and the growth of Hankyu Electric Railway. While she was studying in Osaka under the well-regarded nihonga painter Kitano Tsunetomi (1880-1947) and Kitano's friend the nihonga painter Noda Kyūho 野田九浦 (1879-1971), her painting Hari-kuyō 針供養, (Memorial Service for Old and Broken Needles), see Reference Images, was selected for the 1915, 9th Bunten Exhibition (Ministry of Education Art Exhibition).[3]
In 1916 Kitani, along with three other young female artists Shima Seien 島成園 (1892-1970), Okamoto Kōen 岡本更園 (1895-?) and Matsumoto Kayō 松本華羊 (1893-1961), formed the Joshi-ri no kai (also seen romanized as Onna yonin no kai) 女四人の会 (Four-Woman Society) for mutual support and to promote and exhibit their own work. The group held a single exhibition in May 1916 at the Mitsukoshi department store in Osaka, showing paintings based on the work Kōshoku gonin onna (The Sensuality of Five Women) written in 1686 by Ihara Saikaku 井原西鶴 (1642-1693). It's unclear how long this association continued, but during this time when these four women were sensations on the art scene, evoking both positive and negative reviews of their work and themselves, their mutual support must have been comforting.
In 1918, she would create the painting Ongoku (see Reference Images) in memory of her little brother who passed away that year, ongoku being a song associated with the Bon Festival Also known as urabon or obon, a Buddhist ritual usually observed on July 13 or 15 to honor ancestral spirits. The scene portrayed in this work, shown at the 12th Bunten in 1918, is thought to be from the bunraku play “Shinpan Utazaimon“ and the girl looking at the children through the lattice is considered to be the character Osome, the daughter of an oil merchant in the play.
In 1919 she began studying under the nihonga painter Kikuchi Keigetsu 菊池契月 (1879-1955) in Osaka upon the recommendation of the famous Kyoto nihonga painter Takeuchi Seihō 竹内栖鳳 (1864-1942).
In 1920 she married Kitani Hōgin 木谷蓬吟 (1877-1950), a researcher on the great dramatist of jōruri (a type of dramatic recitation accompanied by a shamisen associated with the Japanese puppet theater), Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Hōgin would publish the comprehensive 16-volume "Dai Chikamatsu Zenshū" in 1922-1925 and Chigusa would be one of eighteen artists to contribute a woodblock print design (see Reference Images) to the eighteen woodblock prints issued under the name Dai Chikamatsu zenshū furoku mokuhan to supplement the work.
In the year of her marriage to Hōgin, she established the painting school Yachigusa-kai (八千草会) at her Osaka home where she aimed to nurture, instruct and improve the status of female painters. "Essentially, women attended this school as part of their premarital lessons, but in 1925, [she] reorganised the school into a research facility and began holding exhibitions. She also organized her own exhibitions with other women painters in Osaka."[4]