The National Museum of Art, Osaka opened in 1977 in the former Expo Museum of Fine Arts, located within Expo ’70 Commemorative Park in Suita, Osaka Prefecture. The museum relocated to a new building on Nakanoshima in 2004, and in 2027 it will mark its 50th anniversary. As that milestone approaches, the 2026 collection exhibition spans two installments, drawing on the museum’s own holdings to revisit developments in art, and the social and historical conditions that shaped them, in the years leading up to the museum’s opening.
The museum has positioned itself as an institution focused on contemporary art, collecting and exhibiting Japanese and international works produced primarily from 1945 to the present. The collection, however, also includes works made prior to this period. Every past age was, in its own time, contemporary, and the art of today is built on the thought and creativity accumulated over that long succession of present moments.
The Collection 1 exhibition spans the period from Paul Cezanne’s work of the 1890s, the oldest in the collection, through the mid-1960s. In presenting the art of these decades, we focus on the establishment and destabilization of the artist as a singular “I” creating the work, and on shifts in the theory and practice of the act of making. Drawing on landmark works from the museum’s collection, the exhibition traces an art-historical narrative still subject to reassessment and revision today.
Artists:
Paul CÉZANNE, Wassily KANDINSKY, Pablo PICASSO, Jean(Hans) ARP, Tsuguharu FUJITA, Marcel DUCHAMP, Yasuo KUNIYOSHI, Giorgio MORANDI, Man RAY, Mark TOBEY, Max ERNST, Tamiji KITAGAWA, Yuzo SAEKI, Jean FAUTRIER, Lucio FONTANA, Jean DUBUFFET, Alberto GIACOMETTI, Takeo YAMAGUCHI, Shuzo TAKIGUCHI, Joseph CORNELL, Willem DE KOONING, Yoshishige SAITO, Jiro YOSHIHARA, Masao TSURUOKA, Yozo HAMAGUCHI, Keiko MINAMI, Ei Q, Morris LOUIS, Nobuya(Yoshibumi) ABE, WOLS, Tazuko TANAKA, Tadashi SUGIMATA, Yuichi INOUE, Chimei HAMADA, Toshiko UCHIMA(AOHARA), Kumi SUGAI, Insik QUAC, ZAO Wou-Ki, Georges MATHIEU, Karel APPEL, Kojin TONEYAMA, Shigeru IZUMI, Sadamasa MOTONAGA, Bushiro MORI, Kinuko EMI, Kiyoji OTSUJI, Saori AKUTAGAWA(MADOKORO), Kazuo SHIRAGA, Hiroshi KATSURAGAWA, Tsuruko YAMAZAKI, Joan MITCHELL, Jean TINGUELY, Ruth ASAWA, Yutaka BITO, Tadashi KATO, Hideko FUKUSHIMA, Fujiko SHIRAGA, Shozo SHIMAMOTO, Hisao DOMOTO, Cy TWOMBLY, Tatsuo IKEDA, Toshimitsu IMAI, Yayoi KUSAMA, Aiko MIYAWAKI, Shomei TOMATSU, Niki de SAINT PHALLE, AY-O, Atsuko TANAKA, Hiroshi NAKAMURA, On KAWARA, Mitsuko TABE, Piero MANZONI, Shigeo ISHII, Tetsumi KUDO, Mokuma KIKUHATA, CHRISTO, Michio FUKUOKA, Jiro TAKAMATSU, Shusaku ARAKAWA, Yukihisa ISOBE, Takesada MATSUTANI, Tomio MIKI, Mieko(Chieko) SHIOMI, Kumiko IMANAKA, Keiji USAMI, Kikuko MORIMOTO, Akirako TAHATA
* Exhibits are subject to change.
(Quoted from the official website)
