Hjalmar Hagelstam was a Finnish painter, printmaker, illustrator and set designer. He worked as a teacher at the Free School of Art from 1938 to 1940, and at the same time he wrote art reviews for Svenska Pressen. Versatile Hagelstam also worked as an advertising and cartoonist .

Hjalmar Hagelstam was born in Hyvinkää just before the turn of the century in April 1899. His parents were Professor Jarl Alarik Hagelstam and Anna Eleonora os Ehrnrooth. Hagelstam married Kitty Maria Fazer in 1927 and divorced in 1939.

After becoming a student, Hagelstam began his art studies in the drawing hall of the University of Helsinki , where he studied from 1918 to 1923. During his last year of study, he also attended the drawing school of the Finnish Art Association, after which he continued his art studies in Paris for another four years and in Italy in 1929 .

Hagelstam was a landscape and portrait painter and a graphic artist who mainly used etching as his method. He also designed abstract murals for the Bauhaus -inspired Fazer Café in 1930.