Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art

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Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Head Office Building, the museum is on the 42nd floor

The Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art (also briefly Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Museum of Art , Jap. 東郷青児記念損保ジャパン日本興亜美術館, Tōgō Seiji Kinen Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Bijutsukan ) is an art museum in Shinjuku , Tokyo Prefecture . The museum is operated by the Sompo Japan Fine Art Foundation , a Public Interest Incorporated Foundation affiliated with the Sompo Japan Nipponkoa insurance company . The museum is located on the 42nd floor of the Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Head Office Building , the company's headquarters in the Nishi-Shinjuku district . The museum collection includes works of modern and contemporary art from both Japan, Europe and North America. The focus is on the works of the Japanese painter Seiji Tōgō , of whom the museum owns more than 200 works. One of the most famous exhibits is a version of Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers , which was the most expensive work of art ever to be auctioned when it was purchased in 1987.

history

Vincent van Gogh: Fifteen Sunflowers in a Vase
Paul Cézanne: French fries and serviette
Paul Gauguin: L'Allée des Alyscamps, Arles
Poster for the exhibition with works of art from the Uffizi Gallery, 2010

The museum was founded in 1976 by the insurance company Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance, which wanted to give its new head office building, today's Sompo Japan Head Office Building, an attraction. From the idea of ​​culturally enhancing the Shinjuku district, which is characterized by numerous newly built administration buildings, the Japanese painter Seiji Tōgō prompted the new museum to donate his art collection with more than 200 of his own works and more than 250 works by other Japanese and foreign artists. This collection formed the basis of the museum, which opened in June 1976 under the name Seiji Togo Memorial Yasuda Kasai Museum of Art on the 42nd floor of the corporate high-rise. In addition to the art exhibition, the museum also offers visitors a good view of Tokyo. In the following years, the museum continuously expanded its collection, with the purchase of a version of Van Gogh's Sunflowers in 1987 attracting special attention worldwide because of its high price. In 2002, the insurance companies Yasuda Fire & Marine and Nissan Fire & Marine merged to form the new company Sompo Japan. In this context, the museum also changed its name and has since been open to the public as the Seiji Togo Memorial Sompo Japan Museum of Art.

collection

The collection includes more than 650 works of art, with a focus on the works of Seiji Tōgō. His works in the museum date from 1914 to 1977 and include more than 70 oil paintings, as well as numerous drawings and lithographs. The museum also owns some of his sculptures and tapestries. Among his paintings, which are mostly influenced by Western painting, there are works in the style of Cubism such as the double bass player from 1915 or the village festival from 1923, painted during a stay in Paris . Also on display by Seiji Tōgō are surrealist works or pictures created around 1930 of late works such as Nostalgia (1959) and Rio de Janeiro (1977). The Seiji Tōgō collection also includes works by artists such as Kenzo Okada , Kigen Nakagawa and Saburo Miyamoto . Other Japanese artists represented in the museum collection are Tsuguharu Foujita , Ryūsei Kishida , Togyu ​​Okumura and Kayo Yamaguchi .

Among the western artists in the museum's collection, the American painter Grandma Moses stands out, of whom the museum owns 33 works. There are also individual works by Pablo Picasso , Georges Rouault , Marc Chagall and Pierre-Auguste Renoir . The top works of the museum include three paintings that the museum acquired at auctions between 1987 and 1990. After the painting Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh , L'Allée des Alyscamps, Arles by Paul Gauguin and Pommes et Serviette by Paul Cézanne entered the collection. A separate room has been reserved in the museum for these three pictures, where they hang on a wall that is separated from the visitor area by a large pane of safety glass. Only these three pictures are shown continuously, while other parts of the collection can only be seen in temporary exhibitions.

Exhibitions (selection)

Once a year the museum awards the Seiji Togo Memoriai Sompo Japan Museum of Art Grand Prix , a prize for contemporary artists to whom the museum dedicates a solo exhibition to mark the occasion. In addition to other exhibitions that are assembled from museum holdings, the museum has mainly organized high-quality exhibitions with Western artists in recent years. Examples were:

Web links

Commons : Sompo Japan Museum of Art  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Art Collecting: Where a Sunny Van Gogh Went Article in Time magazine April 20, 1987

Coordinates: 35 ° 41 ′ 34 ″  N , 139 ° 41 ′ 46 ″  E