The 119th Nitten-Kyoto Exhibition

Preview: written before the show opened

Nitten has run since 1907 and is Japan's largest open-entry art exhibition: anyone can submit, and its entrants range from teenagers to 100-year-olds. Tokyo's show holds about 3,000 works. Kyoto gets a winter edition of about 500.

They mix the core works that tour the country with pieces by artists from Kyoto and Shiga, across Nitten's five categories: nihonga, Western painting, sculpture, crafts and calligraphy. The show spreads across both wings of the main building, with the sculpture on the North Wing's first floor and in the Atrium. You can join one of about 20 gallery talks, each about an hour, where exhibiting artists explain their category; show your ticket and go straight to the room.

Adults pay ¥1,200, high school and university students ¥700, and junior high and younger nothing. Anyone 18 or under who lives, works or studies in Kyoto or Shiga gets in free, as do 20-year-olds on 11 January, Kyoto's coming-of-age ceremony day. Closed Mondays except public holidays, and 28 December to 2 January.