Peaches

Peaches (1954) is among Hagiwara's earliest surviving mature works, predating his international breakthrough at the print biennales by several years. The peach — with its associations in Chinese and Japanese culture with immortality, summer abundance, and the pleasures of cultivation — provided the young printmaker with a subject at once specific and symbolically resonant. The 1954 date places this in the years when he was still developing the carved-surface technique that would define his mature work, and the fruit composition may show a more descriptive approach than his later abstract prints.