The Best Selection of the Ohara Museum of Art

Overview

A renowned businessperson from Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, Magosaburo Ohara (1880?1943) left indelible marks on the fields of social contribution and public welfare. In 1930, Magosaburo founded Japan’s first full-scale Western art museum. With that, the Ohara Museum of Art?a collection that awed audiences around the world?was born. Integral to the founding of the museum was painter and fellow Okayama Prefecture native Torajiro Kojima (1881?1929), who traveled to Europe with Magosaburo’s support and consent to gather pieces of artwork and start amassing a respectable collection. The Ohara Museum of Art has continued to expand its array of artwork, holding true to its founder’s vision, and win over scores art lovers as one of Japan’s premiere art museums.

The Ohara Museum of Art collection not only boasts a wealth of modern Western artwork but also features everything from modern Japanese Western-style paintings, works by artists associated with the Mingei movement, ancient art from Egypt, the Orient, and the East, and postwar art to pieces by contemporary artists at the current creative vanguard. In addition to giving guests glimpses of masterpieces from all of those genres, this exhibition showcases the almost century-long history of the Ohara Museum of Art along with many of the other gems that populate the museum’s collection.

List of works