Exhibitions in Kyoto

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Kyoto Museum for World Peace, Ritsumeikan UniversityPast

Gallery show based on fieldwork: Chinese papercuts and the cultures of China's ethnic minorities, with real objects, panels and contemporary cut-paper works.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 Museum of Crafts and DesignFreePast

Certified Kyo-yuzen master dyers show and sell hand-painted pieces, including unreleased works and prototypes. MOCAD Gallery.

Kyoto Railway MuseumPast

Fifty years of the Tomix model railway brand: a large N-gauge layout, historic and new models, catalogue covers, a recreation of the Umekoji tracks and a hands-on driving corner.

Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of ArtPast

Some 200 prints and immersive videos on Utagawa Kuniyoshi, the 19th-century ukiyo-e master of Water Margin warriors, beauties, landscapes and cats.

Kyoto Prefectural Insho-Domoto Museum of Fine ArtsPast

60th-anniversary show tracing how Insho designed his own museum, inside and out: design sketches, the original poster, furniture and paintings.

Kyoto Prefectural Insho-Domoto Museum of Fine ArtsPast

Four Kyoto craft artists show new work in ceramics, dyed textiles, glass and maki-e lacquer in the museum's New Wing gallery.

The Museum of KyotoPast

Kyoto-born painter Izawa Motoichi's festivals and city scenes: original drawings for his 1979 book Koto Tenbyo alongside oil paintings and archival material.

The Museum of KyotoPast

Maruyama Okyo and the pupils who founded the Shijo school, centred on recent gifts and loans, many shown for the first time.

Kahitsukan – Kyoto Museum of Contemporary ArtPast

About 60 works of calligraphy from the collection by 14 modern Japanese painters, potters, sculptors and poets, incl. Rosanjin, Munakata Shiko and Kumagai Morikazu.

Saga Arashiyama Museum of Arts & CulturePast

Maruyama Ōkyo's Tiger and Tao Yuanming screen alongside disciples like Nagasawa Rosetsu, plus about 40 newly discovered works by his grand-disciple Yano Yachō.

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.

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.

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 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 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.