Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art
The HYOGO Prefectural Museum of Art is located in HAT Kobe, an area developed as a new urban hub in the eastern part of the city. The museum, which opened in April 2002 as a symbol of cultural restoration in the wake of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, was designed by the internationally renowned architect Tadao Ando.
The museum inherited the collection of its predecessor, the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, and has added several new functions. These include the Art Information Center and a facility for art conservation and restoration. It is also working to further enrich its lineup of educational activities and events such as consoerts and filmscreenings.
Mr. Ando's design for the museum is integrated with that of the adjacent Kobe Waterfront Plaza, creating a new community space where art and nature blend harmoniously. Visitors can enjoy the unique scenery of Kobe, characterized by the lush greenery of the Rokko mountain range and the city's vibrant waterfront.
The Ando Gallery
The Ando Gallery, designed and funded by a donation from Mr. Ando, opened in May 2019. The gallery has an upper and a lower level, and displays architectural models, concept sketches, and drawings by Ando. It showcases a wide range of his works, including Kobe Waterfront Plaza in HAT Kobe, a reconstruction project launched after the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake; residential designs such as Row House in Sumiyoshi; and recent international projects.
The upper level houses a library area, where visitors can freely browse through Ando's writings and other architecture-related books. Looking south from the Gallery towards the Seaside Deck, visitors can see Ando's Green Apple monument, inspired by the poem "Youth" by American poet Samuel Ullman. This monument stands as an embodiment of Ando's philosophy.
Main works
Displayed at the Third National Industrial Exhibition in 1890, this painting depicts a heavenly maiden flying over Miho no Matsubara (now Shimizu City), which is known as the site of the "Legend of Hagoromo." The figure fills almost the entire canvas, with a view of Mount Fuji and Suruga Bay below. At that time, there was a strong movement within the Japanese art community against the hasty adoption of Western culture, and in particular against oil painting. In response to this, painters who had returned from studies in France, Germany and Italy formed the Meiji Bijutsu-kai (Meiji Art Association) to counter the nationalistic tendencies and the powerful influence of the Nihonga (Japanese-style painting). This work is an ambitious attempt to transplant the Western painting tradition of drawing inspiration from mythology, legends, and history.
The artist, Honda Kinkichiro, was born the eldest son of a feudal retainer from the Hiroshima Domain stationed in Edo (present day Tokyo). Selected to learn English, he eventually joined the Shogido art school run by Kunisawa Shinkuro, who had just returned from England, to become an oil painter. After Kunisawa's death, he took over the school and taught the younger students. Later, he taught at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy, but also showed his versatility by drawing pen caricatures for the political satire magazine "Marumaru Chinbun."
Born in the city of Kobe, Kanayama Heizo (1883-1964) was a painter who traveled to different parts of Japan for plein air painting. He used to have a set schedule of where and when to go, effectively using each year to paint different places. He first visited Oishida in Yamagata Prefecture in 1923, coming back each May afterwards to capture the melting snow and blooming flowers. In February 1945, as the war intensified, Kanayama evacuated to Oishida and even after the war was over, he would spend most of the year there. Located along the Mogami River, Oishida prospered as a river port during the Edo period and was an economically and culturally rich area. Kanayama appreciated not only the landscape, but also the local people and their way of life and left behind numerous paintings of the area. Painted from a bridge over the Mogami River, this work captures the brightness of the light as it steadily moves towards spring, although there is still snow on the ground.
- Morita Shiryu, Zasojo
- Mitani Toshiko, Girl with a Cat
- Yoshihara Jiro, Red Circle on Black
- Tanaka Atsuko, Work
- Yoshimura Masunobu, Buta･pig lib;
- Kanayama Heizo, Meriken Wharf(Kobe)
- Shiraga Kazuo, Kotei
