Good condition.
Signed, titled and dated on the reverse, inscribed “PARIS.”
There is surface soiling and dust accretion consistent with age.
There are areas of minor craquelure resulting from the natural contraction and expansion of the paint.

Toshimitsu Imai (1928–2002) was a leading figure of postwar Japanese avant-garde painting. Born in Kyoto, he graduated from Musashi High School in 1948 and moved to France in 1952. In 1955, through the painter Sam Francis, he was introduced to the art critic Michel Tapié and joined Art Informel, the avant-garde movement then radiating outward from France. His representative works include Late Autumn and the Kachō Fūgetsu (Flowers, Birds, Wind, and Moon) series. Imai's contributions, however, extended well beyond his own practice: in 1956, he helped arrange the inclusion of works by Jean Fautrier, Georges Mathieu, and others in the exhibition "Art of Today—A World View" at Takashimaya in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, serving as a crucial bridge that brought Art Informel into the Japanese art world. In 1957, he held a successful debut solo exhibition at Galerie Stadler in Paris, going on to establish an international reputation as an Informel painter and to exhibit at distinguished museums both in Japan and abroad.

Painted in Paris in August 1958, HYMNE À LA NUIT dates from the period when Imai's engagement with Art Informel was at its most incandescent. As its title—French for "Hymn to the Night"—suggests, a dark, brooding matière emerges from layers of paint built up and scraped away, across which vivid droplets of color are scattered like stars glittering in the night sky. The work is representative of the early phase of Imai's Art Informel practice and stands as one of its finest achievements.

Hasegawa collection, Shizuoka