Stylish Posters for the National Cherry Blossom Festival

—This is a guest post by Mari Nakahara and Katherine Blood, librarians in the Prints and Photographs Division. It also appears in the March-April issue of the Library of Congress Magazine.

From saplings to centenarians, the fabled cherry blossom trees of Washington, D.C., entice more than 1.5 million visitors to the capital each spring. The initial 1912 gift of 3,020 cherry trees from the city of Tokyo to Washington launched such treasured and enduring traditions as the National Cherry Blossom Festival (Sakuramatsuri in Japanese), which officially began in 1927 and continues to this day.

The Library has collected and preserved each commissioned festival poster since 1987. These artist-designed images reflect on natural beauty, international friendship between Japan and America and local and global communities coming together. Inspired by the glowing blossoms, pink is almost always involved!

Posters engage viewers quickly through combinations of eye-catching art, thoughtful graphic design and compelling messaging. Also functioning as travel posters, these images often pair cherry blossoms and trees with famous D.C. landmarks — the Jefferson and Lincoln memorials, the Washington Monument or the U.S. Capitol.

Strong parallels are seen in the Library’s collection of travel posters from Japan, where cherry blossoms are part of cultural life as poignant symbols of beauty and transience. Those posters frequently depict Hanami (blossom-viewing) destinations or show admirers delighting in the beauty of flourishing yet delicate blossoms.

You can enjoy cherry blossoms all year round in the Library’s extensive collections related to sakura (cherry blossoms), including historical and contemporary prints, drawings, photographs, ephemera and more, created from the 19^th century forward by Japanese, American and international artists. And all are featured in the Library’s popular 2020 book (going into its second edition in 2025) “Cherry Blossoms: Sakura Collections from the Library of Congress.”

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