National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

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The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, Japan, is known for its collection of 20th century art and includes Western-style and Nihonga artists.

This Tokyo museum is also known by the English acronym MOMAT (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo).

1 MOMAT history
2 MOMAT collections
3 Notes
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] MOMAT history

The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, was the first National Museum of Art in Japan and dates back to 1952, when it was established as an institution governed by the Ministry of Education. The architect of the building was Kunio Maekawa. On two later occasions, neighbouring premises were purchased and the Museum was further enlarged and reformed, then designed by Yoshiro Taniguchi (father of Yoshio Taniguchi who built recently the extension of MOMA in New York) to open in June 1969.

[edit] MOMAT collections

The collection contains many notable Japanese artists since the Meiji period as well as a few contemporary Western prints.

In the early years of the 20th century, Matsukata Kojiro collected Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints which had been scattered throughout the world. The 1925 exhibition of the woodblock prints Mtsukata collected abroad is thought to have been the first of its kind in Japan.^[1] Today approximately 8,000 ukiyo-e prints from the Matsukata collection are housed in the Tokyo National Museum.^[2]

[edit] Crafts Gallery

In 1977, the museum opened an annex, the Crafts Gallery, that displays modern textiles, ceramics, lacquers, and other Japanese crafts.

[edit] National Film Center

The Kyōbashi building, remodeled after the move to Kitanomaru Park, now houses the museum's National Film Center (NFC). The nation's only public institution devoted to cinema, it holds about 40,000 films, and numerous other materials, in its collection. The Center has film-related materials on permanent display. In addition, it holds special screenings in its theaters. It is a member of The International Federation of Film Archives. A branch is located in the city of Sagamihara in neighboring Kanagawa Prefecture.

NFC recently restored a Japanese animated film released in 1917--the oldest existing example of a Japanese animated film originally made for the cinema. The film, "The Blunt Samurai Sword" (Namakura-gatana) is the first work of Junichi Kouchi, one of the founders of Japanese animated film. In the silent comedy, a samurai buys a blunt sword and tries it out by attacking an express messenger, only to be badly beaten by his target. The film lasts just two minutes. Although the ultimate status of this film is uncertain, it will be screened by NFC for the public in late April 2008. The animated film became something more than an historical artefact, it became an illustration of the progress film restoration has made over recent decades.^[3]

[edit] Union catalog

The "Union Catalog of the Collections of the National Art Museums, Japan" is an consolidated catalog of material held by the four Japanese national art museums -- the National Museum of Modern Art at Kyoto (MOMAK)), the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo (MOMAT), the National Museum of Art in Osaka (NMAO), and the Nation the National Museum of Western Art at Tokyo (NMWA):^[4]