National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
last update: March 09, 2021
The
National Museum of Western Art (国立西洋美術館 Kokuritsu Seiyō Bijutsukan), often called
NMWA, is one of the many museums in
Ueno Park in Tokyo. It holds a particular record: it is the only national museum dedicated to Western art in a non-Western country.
Practical info, hours and fees
Admission:: 500¥
Opening hours: 9:30-17:30, fri-sat until 20, on some weekends until 21 (
calendar)
Closing days: monday
Other useful information: official website
All the details about the museum
The
National Museum of Western Art, as well as a museum, is also a great architectural work. The main building was designed in 1959 by the French architect
Le Corbusier, one of the fathers of modern architecture. It is his only work on the Asian continent. In 2016, Unesco included the building among the World Heritage Sites.
Historical background
The museum was born in April 1959 to expose to the public the collection accumulated in the early decades of the twentieth century by
Kojiro Matsukata, a wealthy Japanese industrialist who was friend of several European (and especially French) intellectuals and artists. This collection had been confiscated by the French after the end of the war. After years of diplomatic pressure, in 1957 the then French president Charles De Gaulle decided to return the collection almost entirely, as long as it was displayed in a museum. To celebrate the renewed friendship between the two nations, the project of the new museum was entrusted to the French architect Le Corbusier. The project was also attended by three young Japanese assistants of Le Corbusier, Kunio Maekawa, Junzo Itakura and Takamasa Yoshisaka, for whom it will be only the beginning of a long and successful career.
The pieces that arrived from France were 365 in all, but the museum continued to enrich its collection with purchases and donations, and the original building was no longer sufficient. The museum was expanded with two other buildings. In 1979 a new wing was added to the museum, designed by Kunio Maekawa himself. In 1997 a new building was added, intended to house temporary exhibitions.
Museum collection
The museum now holds more than 4500 works of art. The exhibition itinerary is basically divided into two parts:
- One part is dedicated to painting - especially the French one - of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with works by artists such as Cézanne, Corot, Courbet, Delacroix, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Picasso, Pollock, Renoir, Van Gogh, just to name a few;
- Another part is dedicated to European art in the centuries ranging from the Late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, passing through the Renaissance, the Dutch golden age and the Baroque. Among the most famous artists, there are works by Cranach the Elder, El Greco, Fragonard, Guercino, Murillo, Rubens, Tintoretto, Van Dyck, Vasari.
To what has just been said we must add the collection of sculptures, by Auguste Rodin, Aristide Maillol, Émile-Antoine Bourdelle and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. These are almost exclusively copies faithfully reproduced from the originals. Matsukata owned 59 sculptures, which nevertheless remained in France.
Temporary exhibitions
The museum also hosts prestigious temporary exhibitions in a dedicated building. Very often these are exhibitions that include pieces on loan from the most important European museums.
Check the calendar of exhibitions.
How to get to the National Museum of Western Art
The NMWA is located inside Ueno Park, 100 meters from the "Park Exit" of
Ueno station, in front of the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan concert hall and next to the National Museum of Nature and Science.
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