The Obihiro Museum of Art opened in September 1991 as the fifth prefectural museum in Hokkaido. It is a cultural center located in the city of Obihiro, the core cities of Eastern Hokkaido, in the center of the Tokachi Plain. The museum building, surrounded by green groves of trees in a corner of a park near the city center, features an innovative design that inspires fresh encounters with art.

The museum is a space for creativity that helps stimulate emotional development and foster  individuality. It is a stage for lifelong learning that provides many people with an opportunity to encounter beauty through a variety of exhibitions and lectures. 
Experience, excitement, and discovery. A moment in the museum is the beginning of an intellectual drama of exploring the forests of the muse.

The Obihiro Museum of Art aims to be a unique museum by focusing on the following six points.

We collect works associated with Eastern Hokkaido and those of outstanding artists connected with this region, modern and contemporary print art including mainly prints and posters from Japan and abroad, as well as Western landscape and genre paintings.

We display the works in our collection according to a set schedule, hold special exhibitions to introduce a wide range of outstanding works of art from Japan and abroad, and collaborate with other prefectural museums to introduce their collections.

We conduct educational and promotional programs such as lectures, seminars, commentaries, workshops, and programs for children. We also engage in the publishing, collection and storage of books to make them available for the general public, and provide informational materials.

We conduct research mainly on the art of Eastern Hokkaido, print art, and Western landscape and genre painting, which are the mainstays of the museum's collection. We also investigate and study museum activities.

We promote and invigorate local culture through cooperation with various local schools, museums, and cultural organizations.

We try to create an environment that encourages people to come in contact with artistic culture and provide quality time and spaces overflowing with hospitality, taking advantage of the museum's location in a cultural zone in a park with abundant greenery.

We collect works of artists associated with the four districts of Eastern Hokkaido (Tokachi, Kushiro, Nemuro and Okhotsk), as well as works related to them. One of the features of this region is that it has produced many print artists. We also collect representative works in oil painting, Japanese painting, sculpture, print art, and crafts.

We collect outstanding print art with a focus on modern and contemporary prints from Japan and abroad in an organized way. Our diverse collection of print art, including prints, graphic design, photography, and other forms of expression that make use of reproduction technology, offers insight into our modern society, in which replication culture flourishes.

We collect Western artworks featuring rural landscapes and rural customs, focusing mainly on works of the French Barbizon School in the 19th century. This theme well matches the characteristics of the Tokachi region, where agriculture is the core industry.