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Collection Highlights

Other Private Collections

There are a number of former private collections that characterize our Museum collection.

Regarding prints, to name a few, there are the Mochizuki Collection donated by Tomiaki Mochizuki, who spent the fortune he made by inventing a radar on approximately 400 prints by world-famous masters such as Marc Chagall, Georges Roualt, Odilon Redon, and Pablo Picasso and Japanese artists such as Yozo Hamaguchi, the Misao Mashimo Collection comprising prints contemporaneous with the collector, and the Yasushige Miura Print Collection composed of currently active print artists such as Hitoshi Karasawa.

Regarding nihonga (Japanese-style painting), there is the Murata Collection. Tokuji Murata, who worked as head clerk for Sankei Hara, a wealthy merchant in Yokohama, acquired sketches and letters from artists he was close to such as Shinsui Ito, Kokei Kobayashi, Kanzan Shimomura, and Yukihiko Yasuda. These items were donated to us by his son. There is also a collection assembled by the Japanese-style painter Shoko Kinoshita, who was also a collector of antiques including works by Sotatsu Tawaraya and Kamakura period mandalas. The Munakata Collection features the "Munakata Autograph Book." Hisanori Munakata went to Berlin in the 1920s and brought back German Expressionist works to Japan. His autograph book contains autographs and sketches by artists such as Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky. In recent years, we have received a collection of mainly modern Western and Japanese paintings collected by Mr. and Mrs. Kitagawara and the Makoto Kitani Collection of namazu-e (pictures of catfish) and nineteenth century Western prints. These private collections enrich our Museum collection all the more.