Yuko Shimizu (清水裕子) is a Japanese illustrator based in New York City whose work combines Japanese heritage with contemporary reference points. Works by Shimizu address a range of serious issues including sex, race, and cultural identity, but also can be light and whimsical.

Shimizu was born 1965 in Tokyo, Japan, and grew up primarily in Kanagawa Prefecture. At the age of eleven, her father's company moved the family to the United States where they settled in Westchester County, New York, and lived there for four years before returning to Japan. According to Shimizu, attending middle school in the US encouraged a sense of individuality in her that she would take back to Japan and that was not customary for women in the Japanese culture of the time.

Having a great appreciation for Japanese comics, Shumizu imagined becoming a manga artist as a young girl. However, when it came time for university, her parents dissuaded her from following an art education and she attended Waseda University in Tokyo with a major in Faculty of Commerce. She graduated in 1988 as valedictorian. Her first job was in the PR department of a large Japanese corporation, headquartered in Tokyo.

After many years of working in PR, Shimizu realized that women in the firm who had been there for multiple decades were not advancing and decided to pursue an MFA in illustration in the United States. As a non-U.S. resident, she needed to prove she had enough money for four years of tuition and living expenses and saved for two years to have enough money to apply. After eleven years with the PR firm and enough money in the bank to obtain a visa, Shimizu traveled to New York and interviewed at the Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design, and the School of Visual Arts.

She moved to New York City with two suitcases. In 1999 she enrolled in the School of Visual Arts. After finishing her sophomore year, she was accepted into the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program. Under Marshall Arisman she created a personal alphabet book project called Letters of Desire as part of her graduate studies. Shimizu's roommate when she began graduate studies was James Jean, who would illustrate 81 covers for Fables. She graduated in May 2003 with a Masters in Illustration.

Upon completion of her MFA, Shimizu moved into a Manhattan studio with two other friends, John Hendrix and Katie Yamasaki, both of whom she had met in grad school. The three artists wanted a studio that would be easily accessible to magazine and newspaper publishers.

Shimizu began illustrating professionally in 2003 soon after she completed her master's degree. Her first client was The Village Voice, with art director Minh Uong. She would soon add The New York Times, The New Yorker, and the Financial Times to her list of patrons.

Between 2007 and 2010, Shimizu illustrated 33 CD insert covers for Now Hear This, which was a recommended music listening list published by the UK magazine The World. Covers in this series always depicted a woman and a music theme.