TTokyo

Tokyo recommendations thread: Art galleries & small museums

What are your favorite art galleries & small museums?

Don't just drop a name, tell us what's special the place and why you love it.

Bonus point if you share the google maps link.

This is part of a series of weekly threads with recommendations in and around Tokyo. Find the archives in the wiki or through the search.

by AutoModerator

8 comments

  2. A few that I like, with a particular focus on woodblock prints:

    – Ota Memorial Museum of Art in Harajuku – A compact, but really outstanding and educational, collection of ukiyoe (woodblock prints). It has examples of how the prints were designed, woodblocks were carved, and how the prints were actually made.

    – Hokusai Museum in Ryogoku – Another ukiyoe museum, this one focuses on one of the most famous artists, Katsushika Hokusai, perhaps best-known for the series ‘Thirty-six Views of Mt Fuji’, which includes the ‘Great Wave off Kanagawa’ print.

    – Yamatane Museum of Art in Hiroo – This focuses exclusively on Japanese art, including calligraphy, watercolour paintings and ukiyoe and has quite a large collection. There’s a nice cafe, too.

    – Suntory Museum of Art in Roppongi – This has a collection of ‘lifestyle art’, things like lacquerware, ceramic plates, folding screens and other Japanese art dating from the 12th-century Kamakura Period onwards. Every Thursday, the museum opens a tearoom on the upper floor for traditional tea ceremonies.

  3. There is a great exhibition about protest currently on view at Watowa Gallery in Asakusa.

  4. +1 for Yamatane Museum, they have an excellent collection of traditional Japanese art and a good amount of Jakuchu that they sometimes exhibit.

    Adachi Hanga is less of a gallery and more of a shop, but they basically recreated the art of wood block prints as true as possible with the original Edo period tools, processes, and paints. The prints are essentially near perfect copies of masters like Hokusai and Hiroshige, and are fresh unlike the stuff you see in actual museums. They’re great gifts.

    Roppongi’s Mori Museum as well as the art gallery usually has good exhibits. The current street art exhibit is okay though.

    Watarium has had some good contemporary exhibits, though the enjoyment really depends on your tastes for the particular exhibit.

    Also, T-site in Daikanyama (Tsutaya Shoten) is a book store peppered with modern art that you can purchase throughout. It also has a ton of books/magazines on art, photography, architecture, etc that you can browse around.

  6. The [Chihiro Art Museum](https://chihiro.jp/en/tokyo/) in Nerima-ku

    Chihiro Iwasaki is one of my favourite children’s illustrators. Her delicate watercolour illustrations are both vibrate and sweet. It was a treat to see them up close 🙂

  7. I really liked Intermediatheque in the Kitte building, there is also a roof terrace where you can watch every train coming and going at Tokyo station. On a humid stifling day, it was bliss.
    [https://www.intermediatheque.jp/en](https://www.intermediatheque.jp/en)

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