Album of New Year cards 1941

This album preserves nengajo from 1941, the final prewar year, when Onchi and the Ichimokukai circle were still able to obtain reasonable supplies of pigment and [washi](/glossary/washi). The cards inside are characteristically small — often hagaki-format or smaller — and rely on the economy of means that defines [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga): a single artist designing, carving, and printing the entire image without the workshop division of labor used in commercial [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e). Onchi's contributions to such albums frequently pair a hand-carved key block in [sumi](/glossary/sumi) with one or two color blocks registered loosely, allowing the grain of the wood and the texture of the [baren](/glossary/baren) to remain visible in the impression. Recurring motifs include simplified zodiac creatures, floral emblems, and abstract geometric devices that prefigure his later non-objective compositions. As historical documents, the 1941 cards capture the moment before wartime austerity reshaped what materials and subjects were available to printmakers working outside the state-sanctioned propaganda system.