Drooping Cherry Blossoms - 垂れ桜

Dated to 1950, this print depicts the shidarezakura — weeping cherry (Prunus pendula) — whose cascading branch structure differs markedly from the upright Somei-yoshino more common in hanami imagery. The Japanese title 垂れ桜 names the tree directly. The weeping form creates a curtain of blossoms hanging downward from arching limbs, a subject that allows Kotozuka to arrange the composition vertically, with branches arcing across the picture plane and clusters of bloom trailing toward the lower edge. A garden setting — stone path, pond surface, or wall — below the blossom curtain would anchor the botanical subject in a specific Kyoto location. The 1950 date places this firmly in Kotozuka's postwar studio period, when he continued self-publishing without interruption.