Junichiro Sekino (1914-1988) was a Japanese artist who distinguished himself for his ability to mix Eastern and Western styles and techniques in his paintings. He was also a printmaker who knew how to diversify the subjects, representing geishas and kabuki actors as well as the city or natural landscapes. As a student of Kōshirō Onchi, he flourished in the sōsaku-hanga (creative print) movement. This Japanese artistic movement, born at the beginning of the 20th century, continued the production of Japanese ukiyo-e prints, but moved away from its traditional artisanal conception. The print is no longer the result of a cooperation between the designer, the engraver and the printer; the artist now masters the entire process. In addition, the artist now has greater freedom of expression in his choice of subjects.

The war years from 1939 to 1945 were a crucial period for the sōsaku-hanga movement with the creation of the company Ichimokukai  (First Thursday Society). This group was created in 1939 by Kōshirō Onchi in Tokyo, and used to meet once a month to discuss about prints of the movement. The first members were Yamaguchi Gen and Junichiro Sekino. They popularized in the sōsaku-hanga movement the appearance of Western reproduction techniques such as lithography, silkscreen or etching. This helped to revive Western interest in Japanese prints, and to catalog, support and disseminate the works of the movement inside and outside Japan, after the war.