Schedule changed June 9th - Sep. 6th, 2020

During the Edo period, Dejima in present Nagasaki prefecture was the only window to modern foreign cultures, which introduced new expressions to Japanese paintings. Western-style expressions could be seen under the influence of European style painting technique in glass paintings and Nagasaki woodblock prints whose themes were foreign objects, optique pictures, and Doro-e, pictorial souvenir from Edo in thick and opaque pigments. This exhibition introduces Western style paintings and Doro-e of the second half of the Edo period which Soetsu Yanagi, founder of the Museum, called 'crafted paintings' and regarded as folk paintings.

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Canceled

Blessings of the nature or sound minds develop the beauty of mingei. Naoto Fukasawa, a present director of the Museum and world-famous product designer, selects works from the Museum's collection in terms of 'stroke', 'passion' and 'impression', and focuses on roots of creating beauty or significance of existences striking us most. Please appreciate the attractiveness of mingei which are fruits of beauty in everyday life in this exhibition.

Soetsu Yanagi focused on the powerful beauty of Ainu people's creation from early, and held 'Ainu Crafts and Culture Exhibition' in 1941, which was the first Ainu crafts exhibition in a museum. In addition to the Museum's collection, the collection of dyer Keisuke Serizawa who also highly appreciated the beauty of Ainu handicrafts will be on display, and introduce a vigorous imagination and profound creativity of Ainu people in this exhibition.

*cooperated with Shizuoka City Serizawa Keisuke Art Museum

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Canceled

Dedicated to the pursuit of quality handicrafts for today and the future, the Museum sponsors an annual competition, display, and sale of handmade objects by craftspeople. Anyone can participate in the competition. The categories are: ceramics, hand dyed or hand woven textiles, wood work, lacquered ware, metal, bamboo, straw, glass, paper and others.

*West Hall will be closed on Dec. 12th.

Canceled

The collection of the Museum by Soetsu Yanagi bears a universal beauty regardless of different ages, various production places and uses. Yanagi called its beauty 'non-dual beauty' or 'absolute beauty without ugliness', and proposed its value as 'the standard of the beauty.' In this exhibition, various figures of this 'standard of beauty' are on display. These works could be called creation by Yanagi's aesthetic eyes, similar to Ido tea bowls which were originally produced as common bowls and treasured by Japanese tea masters in the early period.