iMuseum "EKi" KYOTOKyoto Station
Uno Akira Exhibition: AQUIRAX UNO
This exhibition has ended.
Illustrator and designer Uno Akira's career since the 1950s: ad work, 1960s underground theatre posters, picture books, animation, stage design and recent paintings.
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You can follow one hand from a pencil self-portrait Uno drew as a teenager in Nagoya in 1949 to the paintings of girls and haiku he has made in recent years, now past 90. The Kyoto Shimbun counts about 500 works in between.
The work list is grouped by job, not by date: Calpis ads from the 1950s, mid-1960s Max Factor posters, silkscreen posters for Shuji Terayama's underground theatre company Tenjo Sajiki, picture-book originals, three short animated films, stage costumes and CD covers for Shiina Ringo. His drawings for Isetan Shinjuku's 2014 shop windows are here too, back inside an Isetan and this time with no glass in the way.
Most of it is posters, print proofs and drawings, so come for design history. Adults pay 1,200 yen at the door, students 1,000, school-age children 500. No booking is needed, though the museum warns of waits when it's busy. It's open daily 10:00 to 19:30, next to the 7th floor of JR Kyoto Isetan in Kyoto Station.
Editor's pick
Uno Akira's work since the 1950s: advertising, posters for 1960s underground theatre, picture books, animation, stage design and recent paintings. The museum is inside Kyoto Station, so it fits between the Shinkansen and the bus queue.
Look for
The Calpis ad originals
Look for hand-made 1950s artwork in ink, watercolour and collage from his first job at Calpis, where he also wrote the ad slogans himself.
The Max Factor posters
A run of 1965 to 1968 cosmetics posters and newspaper-ad proofs, many made with photographer Hideki Fujii, the ads the Kyoto Shimbun says made his name.
The Tenjo Sajiki posters
Silkscreen posters for Terayama's theatre company, including 1968's Shinjuku Thousand and One Nights and The Little Prince, plus his original artwork for the Paris run of Kegawa no Marie.
Three short animated films
Films he made between 1964 and 1966, each 7 to 10 minutes long, with his original drawings for Shiroi Matsuri and Don (Noon Gun).
The Little Prince on stage
Costume designs, two puppets and a short video excerpt from Project Nyx's 2009 staging of The Little Prince, which Uno designed.
Good for
- Nerding Out
- Rainy Days
Skip if
You want big paintings: most of the roughly 500 works are posters, print proofs and drawings.
With kids
Elementary and junior high pupils pay 500 yen. The Kyoto Shimbun notes eroticism and "a scent of death" in his work, so look at the theatre posters before bringing young children through.
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Image credits
5
- Museum "EKi" KYOTOJ o / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Come One, Come All! Higashi-Mikawa's Fumonji TempleCourtesy of Ryukoku Museum
- Ryukoku Museum663highland / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Kyoto Railway MuseumSaigen Jiro / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
- Kyoto National MuseumChainwit. / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0