by Mayumi Oda
Snow and night scenes traditionally command higher prices. Key value factors: For living or recently deceased artists, limited edition size and gallery representation drive value. Signed and numbered prints from smaller editions are most desirable.
The Tanabata festival (七夕) — the seventh day of the seventh month when, according to tradition, the star-crossed lovers Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair) are permitted to cross the Milky Way and meet — rendered in Mayumi Oda's characteristic style of vibrant color and joyful female figures. Oda's treatment of this beloved Japanese festival subject brings her feminist iconography to a story that is fundamentally about longing, reunion, and the power of love to overcome the barriers that authority imposes. The night sky, the river of stars, and the figures crossing toward each other provide Oda with her characteristic compositional elements of flowing water, celestial bodies, and the female form in exuberant motion.
Woodblock print
Teradomari no yau
1921
Color woodblock print; oban
![Mount Fuji on a Moonlit Night, Kawai Bridge (Tsukiyo no Fuji [Kawaibashi]), from the series "Selection of Views of the Tokaido (Tokaido fukei senshu)" by Kawase Hasui](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/d0960668-1e73-339a-b182-fb995a54bff0/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
1947
Color woodblock print; oban
March 1933
Color woodblock print; oban
Night of Tanabata (14/45) was created by Mayumi Oda (小田真由美).
Night of Tanabata (14/45) depicts night scenes.
