Born 1934 in Manchuria, Ikeda returned to the hometown of his mother, Nagano, in 1945. After completing high school in 1952, Ikeda moved to Tokyo and began to work as a print artist. He won consecutively in 1960, 1962, and 1964 at the Tokyo International Print Biennial, and was awarded at the 33rd Venice Biennale in 1966 in the print section. Ikeda, on his way to international fame, did not stagnate on his successes; instead he went on to reinvent his art on multiple occasions.

While Ikeda continued to work as a print artist in Tokyo and New York, he also ventured into novel writing, which eventually garnered him the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1977. Returning to Japan for good, Ikeda settled in Atami (Shizuoka Prefecture) where he experimented with ceramics and three-dimensional objects. He died in 1997.