Camellia at the waterside

Camellia at the Waterside departs from Kojima's predominantly lithographic output to engage the traditional medium of mokuhanga. The composition likely centers on a single camellia branch — the tsubaki — leaning over still water, its glossy leaves and rounded blossoms set against the darker surface. Within the kacho-e tradition, the camellia carries seasonal weight, marking the late-winter to early-spring transition, and its association with samurai imagery rests on the way the bloom falls whole rather than petal by petal. The medium permits effects unavailable to her lithographs: bokashi gradations along the water's edge, the visible grain of the wood block, and the absorbent quality of washi receiving sumi ink. Where her print editions of contemporary women rely on flat fields of black against cream, this work would draw on layered registration and hand-burnished color, situating Kojima within the postwar generation of designers who occasionally crossed into the older woodblock craft. The Birds & Flowers classification places it in the lineage of Edo-period kacho-e while reflecting twentieth-century compositional restraint.