Past Exhibition
Special Exhibition Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Yamatane Museum of Art
A Century of Devotion: The Art of Okumura Togyū
Okumura Togyū, Cherry Blossoms at Daigo-ji Temple,
Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1972,
Yamatane Museum of Art
19 March (sat.) - 22 May (sun.) 2016
(Closed on 3/22, and on Mondays, except for 3/21, 5/2)
*Some of the works or the pages/scenes on display will be changed during the exhibition period.
Organized by Yamatane Museum of Art and Nikkei Inc.
Hours:10am - 5pm (Last admission at 4:30pm)
Admission Fees: Adults: 1,200 [1,000] yen; university and high school students: 900 [800] yen; middle school and younger children: free of charge
*Figures in brackets are for groups of 20 or more, advance tickets, repeaters with used tickets, and those who are wearing kimono.
*Disability ID Holders and one person accompanying them are admitted free of charge.
Highlights of the Exhibition
Section 1: Okumura Togyū: Foundations
- Okumura Togyū, The Kōshū Highway, Color on Paper, Taishō Period, 1924, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Azabu Nanbuzaka, Color on Paper, Taishō Period, 1925, Private Collection
- Okumura Togyū, Cucumber Field, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1927, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (On display 3/19-4/17)
- Okumura Togyū, Poetic Rain, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1928, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, A Girl Under a Loquat Tree, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1930, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Maeda Seison, Portrait of Togyu Okumura, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1973, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (On display 3/19-4/17)
Section 2: Consciousness of Form
- Okumura Togyū, Snow-covered Mountain, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1946, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Himeji Castle, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1955, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Maelstroms at Naruto, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1959, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Tea Ceremony Room, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1963, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Chinese Vases, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1966, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Gate, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1967, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Kitayama Cypress, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1976, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Spring in Yoshino, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1977, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, The Sea at the Bōsō Peninsula (Chiba), Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1981, Yamatane Museum of Art
Section 3: The Revered and the Beloved
- Okumura Togyū, Rabbit, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, c. 1947, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Maiko, Apprentice Geisha, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1954, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Water Lilies, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1955, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Dainichi Buddha, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1957, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Nachi Falls, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1958, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Deer, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1968, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, Cherry Blossoms at Daigo-ji Temple, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1972, Yamatane Museum of Art
- Okumura Togyū, A Leisure Day, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1974, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (On display 4/19-5/22)
- Okumura Togyū, Mt. Fuji Viewed from Fujinomiya, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1982, Yamatane Museum of Art
Approximately 60 works in total are to be displayed.
In the 2016 Yamatane Museum of Art celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of its founding. It opened in 1966 as Japan first museum dedicated to Nihonga, based on the collection of Yamazaki Taneji (1893-1983), founder of Yamatane Securities (now SMBC Friend Securities Co., Ltd.). Today its collection includes some 1,800 works. It is distinctive for its core collection of modern and contemporary Nihonga that Taneji built through his close ties with the artists. This exhibition, the first phase of our fiftieth-anniversary celebration, focuses on Okumura Togyū (1889 - 1990), presenting a comprehensive view of his ouevre. Our collection of 135 of his works is unrivaled in Japan. Moreover, Togyū is an artist with whom our directors had close ties for over fifty years, starting when he was an unknown painter diligently engaged in his studies.
Togyū began to learn to paint in his teens from his father, an aspiring artist; in the painting school operated by Kajita Hanko (1870 - 1917), he met Kobayashi Kokei (1883 - 1957), whom he revered as his lifelong master. While something of a late bloomer, with his work first selected for the Inten exhibition when he was 38, his reputation grew after he reached his mid forties, and he continued to work after his hundredth birthday. He sustained the approach of placing emphasis on sketching and on classical poise in his work, which he learned from Hanko and Koeki, throughout his life. "What is transmitted through a painting is the artist's humanity," he said, and, as though to embody those words in his work, he created many paintings filled with clarity and warmth.
This exhibition examines Togyū's 101-year life through about sixty works, including some borrowed from other collections, starting with early period works such as Asabu Nanbuzaka (private collection) and Cucumber Field (The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo). The core of the exhibition is paintings he showed in the Inten, his main area of activity, including Snow-covered Mountain, Sacred Cattle,and Himeji Castle. It also includes Cherry Blossoms at Daigo-ji Temple and Dainichi Buddha, which he created in memory of Kokei, and Maelstroms at Naruto, which was based on careful sketching of an actual scene.
The art name Togyū, which was given to him by his father, is based on a phrase from a Tang dynasty Chinese poem concerning a buffalo tilling a rocky field; the implication is that hard work and determination will turn even rough, rocky land, in time, into a beautifully fertile field. As his name suggests, Togyū concentrated steadily on his work, with diligence and zeal. He said, when he was over the age of 80, "I will never forget, until my dying day, what I first set out to do; I want to keep painting pictures, however clumsily, that live." The Yamatane Museum of Art is delighted, in celebrating a half century after its opening, to introduce the life and work of Togyū, a beloved, and masterly, Nihonga artist active in the modern and contemporary periods who had deep ties to our museum.
(All works are from the museum's collection unless otherwise stated.)
 Cucumber Field, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1927, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (On display 3/19-4/17) |
 Maiko, Apprentice Geisha, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1954, Yamatane Museum of Art |
 Water Lilies, Color on Silk, Shōwa Period, 1955, Yamatane Museum of Art |
 Himeji Castle, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1955, Yamatane Museum of Art |
 Maelstroms at Naruto, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1959, Yamatane Museum of Art |
 A Leisure Day, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1974, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (On display 4/19-5/22) |
 Spring in Yoshino, Color on Paper, Shōwa Period, 1977, Yamatane Museum of Art |