Born in Kyoto as the eldest son of Kano Naonobu. Served as the chief painter for the Tokugawa family in the early Edo period. He is appreciated as having built the foundation for the Kobikicho Kano family. As he learned to paint from his uncle Kano Tanyu, he made an effort to study and copy old paintings, and painted ambitious pieces incorporating pictures of flowers and birds from the Muromachi period. In his later years, his style changed to a more graceful one. Tsunenobu’s style was more decorative than Tanyu’s, and his achievements in painting place him among the four masters of the Kano school, alongside Motonobu, Eitoku, and Tanyu.