Long hair

A figure study foregrounding the subject's hair as the principal compositional element, "Long hair" departs from the conventional bijin-ga focus on costume and coiffure styling to emphasize the abstract pattern of cascading strands. Hiratsuka produced figure prints throughout his career, generally in his preferred black-and-white woodcut technique, where the contrast between dense ink and untouched washi suits the graphic possibilities of dark hair against pale skin. The carving of long hair in woodblock requires sustained linear cutting — chiseled parallels and gentle curves that follow the fall of the strands — and the print would showcase the artist's confident handling of the knife. As a sosaku-hanga practitioner, Hiratsuka designed, carved, and printed every stage himself, refusing the traditional ukiyo-e division of labor among designer, blockcutter, and printer. The subject sits within a broader twentieth-century reconsideration of the female figure in Japanese print, in which artists moved away from the Edo-period vocabulary of the courtesan and toward modern, often anonymous portrayals.