Greeting Card

A greeting card by Munakata — a small-format woodblock print designed for the new year or a special occasion, made around 1950 — belongs to the long tradition of Japanese artists creating surimono and nengajo (new year cards) as gifts and expressions of friendship. Munakata's greeting cards maintained the full energy of his larger prints within the intimate format: the image might be a small deity, a character, a landscape fragment, or one of his characteristic women, but it would carry the same direct carving vitality that defined all his work regardless of scale. Such cards circulated within the community of artists, writers, and patrons who formed his world.