Maekawa Senpan was born as the son of a shopkeeper family in Kyoto. He studied art and worked as a cartoonist for a satirical magazine. Later, he even had a cartoon series in a Sunday newspaper about a clumsy bear. Maekawa Senpan made his first print in Sosaku Hanga style in 1919. After the end of the Pacific War, he became famous with prints in cheerful colors showing the customs and festivities of the common people in the countryside.