Born in Mie Prefecture, Satō graduated from Nagoya City Technical High School and in 1955 eentered both the Kokugakai Exhibition and the Nihon hanga Kyōkai Exhibition for the first time. In 1958 he had received an award at a Kokugakai exhibition, and in 1963 became a full member of that association. In 1957, he had participated in the Tokyo International Print Biennial, and thereafter participated in domestic print exhibitions around Japan. He made mostly woodblock prints, often featuring abstractions that were themes and variations on a specific shape.