Born in Yokohama, Yoshida Chizuko commenced her career as an oil painter, initially studying under Fumio Kitaoka (Acc.no. 435.1993) before she went to Manchuria and was evacuated from Tokyo during the war. After the war she resumed oil painting until she met and married Yoshida Hodaka who taught her printmaking. Like him, she has moved from using only woodblocks for her prints, to include other techniques.

Her prints are distinguished by the obsessive treatment of a single subject, organised in bands of varying density and colour intensity. Often butterflies are her subject; in this print she has chosen the popular subject of plum blossoms which for a Japanese viewer is rich in emotive and poetic associations. Plum blossoms symbolise early spring, the transition of the seasons, and the poignant transience of life.

Jackie Menzies, Contemporary Japanese Prints: The Urban Bonsai, 1992, pg. 100.