Preparing for take-off

Shori Arai, Maintenance Work aboard Aircraft Carrier II (c. 1943)

Apropos of nothing, here's a (somewhat cropped) c. 1943 painting by a Japanese artist named Shori Arai. (Sometimes called Maintenance Work aboard Aircraft Carrier II, though clearly it's not maintenance that's going on there.) The original is held by the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. It was also issued as a postcard by the Japanese Navy Ministry.

Shori Arai, Preparing for Take-Off (1943)

Sources: US Naval Institute (though I've flipped the image horizontally, as this seems to be correct); Daitoua Sensou no Hagaki.

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2 thoughts on “Preparing for take-off

  1. Post author

    Thanks, Jonathan -- it's nice to have readers who are better educated than me! 'Preparing for take-off' I got from the Tumblr where I found the postcard, so that sounds accurate enough. Maintenance Work aboard Aircraft Carrier II sounds suspiciously formal; maybe it was retrospectively applied by a curator trying to put the paintings into some kind of order. In fact only I depicts maintenance; III is after take-off.

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