Details

Hideo Hagiwara’s Fairy of the Night is a nocturne of abstract forms—a constellation of floating, flame-like shapes adrift in an obsidian field. Rendered in vivid reds and deep oranges that glimmer against the saturated black, the composition feels weightless, unbound by gravity or structure. These elements do not describe a figure so much as they evoke a presence—elusive, flickering, as though glimpsed just beyond the reach of waking vision. The effect is hypnotic, an invitation to move beyond the literal and into the poetic.

Hagiwara’s mastery of abstract language in woodblock—rare even among his contemporaries in the postwar Sōsaku Hanga movement—reflects both technical command and philosophical reach. With Fairy of the Night, he created a space where the mystical and modern collide. Each shape, suspended in darkness, becomes its own floating stanza—lyrical, spontaneous, yet meticulously placed. The print feels less like an image and more like a spell.

Connoisseur's Note

Hagiwara began his artistic journey in traditional Japanese painting (nihonga) but evolved into one of the leading figures of abstract printmaking in postwar Japan. His work bridges East and West—combining the disciplined sensitivity of Japanese aesthetics with the experimental energy of global modernism. Fairy of the Night exemplifies this balance: its calligraphic precision and tonal restraint mirror the Japanese ink tradition, while its abstraction echoes mid-century European and American visual language.

This impression, number 6 of just 50, is particularly rich in its surface textures, with velvety blacks and vibrant warm hues that suggest an early pull from the blocks. The fine gradation and subtle overlays—hallmarks of Hagiwara’s intuitive printing approach—create a soft luminosity in the darker passages. A rare and elegant example of Hagiwara’s lyrical abstraction, this print remains a testament to his ability to transform emptiness into atmosphere and gesture into presence.