Exhibitions in Kyoto

Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan University

Five original Hiroshima Panels by Iri and Toshi Maruki, shown in Kyoto for the first time in 42 years, with 61 items incl. documents found in 2025 and the 1953 film.

Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design

Kyoto craft skills reimagined as contemporary products and design, plus a parallel show on materials and techniques from five Kyoto makers.

Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan UniversityPast

Real objects from the Okawa Kazuyoshi collection show how children still found joy in learning and play as the Asia-Pacific War brought danger and hardship.

The Museum of Kyoto

130 years after Kyoto's Japan Nanga Association formed, works by Tanomura Chokunyu, Tomioka Tessai and fellow literati painters from the Kyoto Prefecture collection.

Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art

Immersive exhibition exploring Zen through Studio Ghibli films, built around Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron, in the Higashiyama Cube.

Kahitsukan – Kyoto Museum of Contemporary Art

60 signed original prints from the collection by Magnum photographer Martine Franck: children, portraits, Tory Island in Ireland, and intimate shots of her husband Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Kyoto Railway Museum

Kyoto Station 150th anniversary show on railway architecture: four generations of Kyoto Station and their architects, roundhouse drawings and historic station buildings.

Saga Arashiyama Museum of Arts & Culture

Early-modern and modern paintings of Kyoto's sights, festivals, geiko and vegetables, from Hara Zaichū's Aoi Festival scroll to sweet-shop wrappers by Tomioka Tessai.

Kyoto National Museum

Some 250 works inspired by Murasaki Shikibu's classic, including Teika's Blue-Cover manuscript and the scattered "Phantom Genji Scrolls". Two installations.

The Kyoto University Museum

Centenary show for Kyoto University's Institute for Chemical Research: synthetic oil, chemical heritage objects, industry spin-offs and today's research.

Kyoto Railway MuseumPast

Two Kumoya 145 electric cars, used for rescue and supply runs, visit on the museum siding, with free interior viewing and staff-led tours.

Kyoto Museum of Crafts and DesignFreePast

Dyed and woven textile works by Kansai members and trainees of the Japan Society of Dyeing and Weaving Artists, on show and for sale. MOCAD Gallery.

Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art

Collection display on the museum's 1933 founding as the Kyoto Enthronement Memorial Museum of Art, with its earliest acquisitions and archive material.

Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan UniversityFree

Photo albums found in 2026 trace Ichiro Ogaki from prewar Miyagi through the Manchurian Incident and the Manchukuo army to postwar life, a past he never spoke of.

Kyoto Prefectural Insho-Domoto Museum of Fine ArtsFreePast

Ten young ikebana artists from Kyoto's flower-arranging schools install works in the museum's Insho-designed garden and entrance. Free.

Kyoto Prefectural Insho-Domoto Museum of Fine Arts

60th-anniversary show on how Domoto Insho painted women across his career, from entertainment-district women in his youth to modern works like Takamine Hideko in Black.

Kyoto Museum of Crafts and DesignFreePast

Handmade plates for cake, pastries and bread by 20+ Kyoto makers, shown and sold alongside hand-drip coffee and Kyoto baked sweets. MOCAD Gallery.

Nijo Castle (Nijo-jo)

Painted cedar doors of pines and cranes by a Tsurusawa School artist (1800), from the Goshoin's western corridor, one of the palace's 14 door sets shown one at a time.

Kyoto Railway Museum

Steam locomotives and station buildings of early 20th-century Kyoto, shown with scenes from the anime Eureka Evrika as part of the museum's collaboration with the series.

Kyoto Museum of Crafts and DesignFree

27 objects from 17 Kyoto university museums, chosen around handcraft, mark the Kyoto University Museum Network's 15th year. WEST SQUARE Window Gallery.

The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK)

The next rotation of MoMAK's collection displays, running alongside the jewellery exhibition; themes include the museum's outdoor sculptures.

The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK)

About 350 pieces tracing post-war Japanese art jewellery, from the JJDA founders to contemporary makers, with works by Otto Künzli and others.

Sen-oku Hakuko Kan

Modern Japanese-style and Western-style paintings and crafts collected by Sumitomo Shunsui, traced chronologically through his friendships with the artists of his day.

The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK)Past

Career survey of the Italian landscape painter who taught Western painting in Meiji Japan, with loans from GAM Turin and works by his Japanese students.

The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK)Past

MoMAK Masters highlights plus rooms on Kamisaka Sekka's 160th anniversary, Lizzi Ueno-Rix textiles, Asai Chu, dyed textiles and photography.

The Kyoto University MuseumPast

Newly designated Important Cultural Property: the handwritten diary of Muromachi-era courtier Madenokoji Tokifusa, a key source on 15th-century politics.

Kyoto Museum of Crafts and DesignFreePast

Autumn-themed kimono from the museum collection, from bold patterns to fine motifs and star designs, curated with museum trainees. WEST SQUARE Window Gallery.

Sen-oku Hakuko KanPast

The 1626 Kan'ei imperial procession to Nijo Castle, centred on the museum's teeming folding screen, and the refined culture around Empress Tofukumon'in.

Sen-oku Hakuko KanPast

A small display in the museum's Taotie Room of objects from the Sumitomo Pavilion at Expo 2025, including its forest diorama, a wooden bench and lanterns.

Nijo Castle (Nijo-jo)Past

Hara Zaisho's 1852 painted cedar doors of two Bugaku dancers performing Nasori beside a white plum, one of 14 door sets shown one at a time in the Honmaru-goten Palace.

Museum "EKi" KYOTOPast

Illustrator and designer Uno Akira's career since the 1950s: ad work, 1960s underground theatre posters, picture books, animation, stage design and recent paintings.

Kyoto International Manga MuseumFreePast

Mini exhibition on Yuno Ichika's fantasy series Yoake no Uta, with full-colour illustrations, artwork printouts and a live drawing event. Part of KYOMAF 2026.

Hosomi MuseumPast

Calligraphy, poems and letters by the Zen monk Ryōkan (1758-1831), incl. rarely shown masterpieces "Tenjo Taifu" kite lettering and "Moon Rabbit" long poem.

Nijo Castle (Nijo-jo)Past

Original Kano murals from the Ohiroma's First and Second Rooms, where Emperor Go-Mizunoo watched Noh in 1626: pines, bamboo and golden pheasants, and soaring peafowl.

The Museum of Kyoto

For the 400th anniversary of Emperor Go-Mizunoo's 1626 visit to Nijo Castle, a survey of early-Edo Kan'ei culture: screens, swords and Kano paintings.

Ryukoku Museum

Ahead of its 1,300th anniversary, Fumonji, a mountain temple in Toyohashi, Aichi, lends powerful Heian-period Buddhist sculptures, sutra-mound finds and historical documents.

Kyoto Railway Museum

Collection display pairing design drawings of trains and equipment with the real parts, such as a wooden pattern for a D60 locomotive grate and a 0 Series speedometer.

Kyoto Museum of Crafts and Design

Kyoto Municipal Institute of Industrial Technology and Culture showcase in the EAST SQUARE: Kato Tech makeup brushes and Mori no Kyoto Distillery craft gin.

Kyoto Railway Museum

For the museum's 10th anniversary, 22 collection photographs of the guest trains brought in on the siding for special displays, including the 113 Series C5 set (2023).

Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of ArtFree

Free show in The Triangle: installations, sculpture and drawings turning wallpaper, rubber bands and graffiti into studies of lines, shadows and ground.

Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art

First retrospective in 40 years of Kyoto weaver Yamaga Seika, whose handwoven brocades range from Gion Festival tapestries to locomotives and Tokyo Tower.

Sen-oku Hakuko Kan

Shang and Zhou bronzes cast with ancient Chinese inscriptions (jinwen), the earliest forms of today's characters, read as calligraphy and as historical record.

Raku Museum

How the chrysanthemum, emblem of the noble recluse, was painted and carved on Raku tea bowls across the generations, some pieces predating the Edo-period chrysanthemum craze.

Kyoto Railway Museum

Archive photos of how the museum came to be: construction, trains being moved in and installed, and the halls at the 2016 opening.

Fukuda Art Museum

The museum's first shunga show debuts the 14th-century Chigo Sōshi scroll, with Hokusai's Nami Chidori and love-themed works by Uemura Shōen. Ages 18+ only.

Kyoto International Manga MuseumFree

Four decades of manga reception in France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Germany, plus work by European artists who grew up reading it. A 20th-anniversary show.