Known chiefly for his landscape prints throughout the early Showa period, Kasamatsu Shiro was a shin hanga print artist born in 1898. Early in his career, Kasamatsu studied nihonga painting techniques under Kiyokata Kaburagi. Upon completing his studies, he began featuring paintings at the Bunten, Teiten, Tatsumi Gakai, and Kyodokai exhibitions. In 1919, he began designing woodblock prints for the noted publisher Watanabe Shozaburo at the request of his mentor. 

Throughout the 1930s, Kasamatsu published a variety of shin hanga landscapes. He was particularly adept at the suggesting nuances of weather and the atmosphere at specific times and places, as seen in Yomeimon Gate, Nikko, in Light Rain (1935). His ability to capture the mood of a time and place can be seen in Spring Night: Ginza (1934). 

The highlight of Kasamatu's career came in 1933 with his feature in the International Print Exhibition in Warsaw and the 1936 Toledo Exhibition alongside ten other prominent shin hanga artists. After the onset of the Pacific War, however, Kasamatsu withdrew from Watanabe's inner circle and began self-carving and printing his work. In comparison with his pre-war prints, Onion Flowers (1958) is relatively less refined but charged with its own creative vitality. Kasamatsu also published the series Eight Views of Tokyo as well as several animal prints for the Unsodo publishing house during the 1950s. Although he continued woodblock production, Kasamatsu did not promote his work through affiliations or exhibitions.