The , also known as MOMAT, is the foremost museum collecting and exhibiting modern

Japanese art Japanese art consists of a wide range of art styles and media that includes Jōmon pottery, ancient pottery, Japanese sculpture, sculpture, Ink wash painting, ink painting and Japanese calligraphy, calligraphy on silk and paper, Ukiyo-e, paint ...

. The museum, in

Chiyoda, Tokyo , known as Chiyoda City in English,
." ''City of Chiyoda''. Retrieved on December 28, 2008. is a S ...

, Japan, is known for its collection of 20th-century art and includes Western-style and ''

Nihonga ''Nihonga'' () is a Japanese style of painting that typically uses mineral pigments, and occasionally ink, together with other organic pigments on silk or paper. The term was coined during the Meiji period (1868–1912) to differentiate it from ...

'' artists. It has a branch, the National Crafts Museum, in the city of

Kanazawa is the capital of Ishikawa Prefecture in central Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Etymology The name "Kanazaw ...

History

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, was the first national museum of art in Japan and dates back to 1952, when it was established as an institution governed by the Ministry of Education. The architect of the building was Kunio Maekawa. On two later occasions, neighbouring premises were purchased and the museum was enlarged. The most recent redesign of MOMAT was conceived by

Yoshirō Taniguchi was a Japanese architect. He was born in the city of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. He was a graduate of Tokyo University Department of Architecture and professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology from 1929–1965. As an architect, he crea ...

(father of Yoshio Taniguchi, who designed the extension of

MOMA The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in New York).

Collections

The collection contains many notable Japanese artists since the

Meiji period The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...

, and a few contemporary Western prints. In the early years of the 20th century, Matsukata Kojiro collected Japanese ''

ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock printing, woodblock prints and Nikuhitsu-ga, paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes ...

'' woodblock prints which had been scattered throughout the world. The 1925 exhibition of the woodblock prints Matsukata collected abroad is thought to have been the first of its kind in Japan.Checkland, Olive. (2002)
''Japan and Britain After 1859: Creating Cultural Bridges,'' p. 107.
/ref> Today, around 8,000 ''ukiyo-e'' prints from the Matsukata collection are housed in the MOMAT.
/ref>

Crafts Gallery

National Crafts Museum in Kanazawa 20201116-001

In 1977, the museum opened an annex, the Kōgeikan Crafts Gallery, that collects and exhibits

textiles Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porce ...

lacquer Lacquer is a type of hard and usually shiny coating or finish applied to materials such as wood or metal. It is most often made from resin extracted from trees and waxes and has been in use since antiquity. Asian lacquerware, which may be c ...

, and other Japanese crafts, as well as crafts and designs from around the world dating from the late 19th century to the present. Its collection focus in particular is the work of Japanese Living National Treasures. The Crafts Gallery maintains its own research library. In 2020, as part of the Japanese government's policy to revitalize local areas, the Crafts Gallery was relocated to

, and the National Crafts Museum was opened there. Its official name is still the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo Craft Gallery.

National Film Center

Until April 2018, the National Museum of Modern Art housed the National Film Center (NFC), which was Japan's only public institution devoted to cinema. In April 2018, the NFC became independent of the art museum and was officially elevated to the rank of a national museum under the name the

National Film Archive of Japan The is an independent administrative institution and one of Japan's seven national museums of art which specializes in preserving and exhibiting the film heritage of Japan. In its previous incarnation, it was the National Film Center, which was pa ...

Union catalog

The "Union Catalog of the Collections of the National Art Museums, Japan" is a consolidated catalog of material held by this museum and the other three Japanese national art museums—the

National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto The is an art museum in Kyoto, Japan. This Kyoto museum is also known by the English acronym MoMAK (Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto). History The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK) was initially created as the Annex Museum of the Nationa ...

(MOMAK), the

National Museum of Art, Osaka is a subterranean Japanese art museum located on the island of Nakanoshima, located between the Dōjima River and the Tosabori River, about 10 minutes west of Higobashi Station in central Osaka. The official Japanese title of the museum trans ...

(NMAO), and the

National Museum of Western Art The is the premier public art gallery in Japan specializing in art from the Western tradition. The museum is in the Ueno Park in Taitō, central Tokyo. It received 1,162,345 visitors in 2016. History The NMWA was established on June 10, 1959 ...

(NMWA). IAI-National Museums of Art union catalog
/ref> The online version of the union catalog is under construction, with only selected works available at this time.

References

* Checkland, Olive. (2002)
''Japan and Britain After 1859: Creating Cultural Bridges.''
London:

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

. * Falk, Ray.
"French Art in Tokyo,"
''New York Times.'' June 21, 1959.

External links

National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (in English)

Artfacts.netMOMAT overview

* ttp://www.leiko.info/index.php?id=2428 Show of Leiko Ikemura in the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo 2012* {{Authority control National museums of Japan Buildings and structures in Chiyoda, Tokyo Art museums and galleries in Tokyo Modern art museums in Japan Art museums and galleries established in 1952 1952 establishments in Japan