Hideo Hagiwara1913~2007 萩原英雄

Hideo Hagiwara (February 22, 1913 – November 4, 2007) was a Japanese printmaker born in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture. He entered the oil painting department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts in 1933, graduated in 1938, and joined the Takamizawa Mokuhansha woodblock company, where he studied traditional ukiyo-e woodblock techniques. Drafted into military service in 1943, he lost his earlier works in the wartime fires, but in 1953, while convalescing from illness, he began making woodblock New Year’s cards, which led him to dedicate himself to woodblock printmaking. Aiming to bring the depth of oil-painting color into woodcuts, he developed innovative techniques such as “double-sided printing,” took up lithography from 1960 onward, and won numerous prizes at major international print exhibitions. He died in 2007 at the age of 94.