特別展

Rediscover Migishi Kotaro

Sapporo-born painter Migishi Kotaro (1903-1934) moved to Tokyo at the
age of 18 to become a painter. He drank in the art world’s new trends and his
art evolved at a dizzying speed, catapulting him into fame as a painter. He
died when he was only 31, but in his short career of around 10 years, he
opened up a new realm with his fresh, deeply modern works and left an
indelible mark in Japan’s history of modern Western-style painting.
This year marks the 120th anniversary of Migishi’s birth and the 40th
anniversary of the opening of our new building. This exhibition is an oppor-
tunity to take another look at Migishi Kotaro’s career and works and dive
into the unique qualities of his art that made him a pioneer in Japan’s paint-
ing world in the 1920s and 1930s.
In this exhibition, we have focused on each of the distinctive pillars of Mi-
gishi’s creative world, including gardens, lines, diagonal and horizontal lines,
gray and white, and shadows, and traced each one back to the source of its
appeal. We hope this exhibition will be an opportunity for you to look once
again at the progression of Migishi’s works and the fluid radiance that grew
over time.
We would like to finish by expressing our sincere gratitude to the owners
who generously lent us these valuable works and everyone who helped to
organize this exhibition.