Number 19

Number 19, a 1974 woodblock print by Morozumi Osamu, is held at the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art, acquired through the Kenneth and Kiyo Hitch Collection of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Prints with funds from the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment. Produced in the same year as Number 18, the print belongs to the long ongoing series of numbered abstract sheets that Morozumi began in the early 1970s, soon after his 1972 receipt of the Japan Print Association Young Talent Award and his top prize at the Nichido Grand Print Exhibition. Morozumi was trained as a sculptor at Tama Art University in Tokyo under Fukita Fumiaki and approaches the woodblock matrix as a three dimensional surface to be worked through directional puncture with nails of varying diameters, rather than carved with traditional chisels and gouges. The resulting prints, struck in black or near black ink on white [washi](/glossary/washi), read as fields of luminous granular dots whose density and spacing produce gradients of light and shadow recalling photographic halftone or astronomical imagery, while remaining fully Showa woodblock prints in technique and material. Like its companion Number 18, this sheet favors centered spherical and circular forms set against densely textured grounds, with strong tonal contrasts between dark fields and lighter areas. The Smithsonian impression preserves the calibrated densities and tonal gradations that distinguish Morozumi's contribution to the late twentieth century [sosaku-hanga](/glossary/sosaku-hanga) tradition.