Calendar of April 1942 (Showa 17)

This print belongs to a calendar sheet for April 1942 (Showa 17), produced as part of the wartime print-calendar tradition in which sosaku-hanga artists supplied monthly woodblock illustrations for subscription calendars circulated among collectors. April subjects almost invariably draw on the imagery of late spring — cherry blossom, willow, schoolchildren, or a seasonal landmark — rendered in the small, intimate format these calendars required. The 1942 date situates the sheet at a particularly constrained moment in the Pacific War, when paper, pigment, and even cherry-wood blocks were rationed; calendar prints from this period often show economy in the number of blocks used, with simpler color schemes than Kawanishi's prewar Kobe work. As a Kobe artist embedded in regional sosaku-hanga networks, Kawanishi contributed to several calendar series across his career. The format — a small image with date grid, often signed and sealed in the block — kept the creative-print movement visible to its small but committed collector base through the war years and into the occupation period.