During World War II she supported nationalism in pieces like Late Autumn which depicts a beautiful woman doing her part to help the war. Despite her advanced age, she even traveled to the war zone in China at the invitation of the Japanese government for propaganda purposes, to prove to people back home that all was going well. Many of her works from this period, including Twilight (1941), Clear Day (1941), and Late Autumn (1943), depict working women engaged in daily chores, who display a strong sense of vitality. As with her works from the 1930s, Shōen shows a skilful use of negative space, with realistic detail, neat lines and a calm use of color. As the war situation deteriorated, in February 1945, Shōen was evacuated from Kyoto to the suburbs of Nara