The Strangers' Gaze: Japanese Artists in Europe

Now showing24 October 2026 – 31 January 2027¥1,200

Over 100 paintings from the Ishibashi Foundation Collection show how Japanese artists studying in Europe since the Meiji era, including Kuroda Seiki and Fujita Tsuguharu, engaged with Western art traditions.

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On now All of November 2026

Hyakutake Kaneyuki's Reclining Nude is almost two metres wide, and he painted it around 1881, among the first nudes a Japanese artist made in oils. All hundred-plus paintings here share its back story: made in Europe, by a Japanese artist who went there to learn. Moved to Tokyo and still order by pointing at menu photos? Same premise, reversed.

The show fills two floors in six chapters: portraits, nudes, museum copies, Paris, sketching trips in France, then Italy and Greece. You go from Kuroda Seiki's Woman Sewing, modelled by a woman he grew close to in France, to Fujita's Paris street, past a copy of Ingres commissioned by the museum's founder, who once imagined a "museum of copies". New acquisitions, including Takashima Yajuro's Foggy Day, are shown for the first time.

Timed tickets cost ¥1,200 online or ¥1,500 at the desk if a slot is free; students go free with an online booking. The ticket also covers Fujii Hikaru's show on the 6th floor, and Fridays run to 20:00.

Look for

Hyakutake Kaneyuki, Reclining Nude
Look for a nude stretched across a canvas 188 cm wide, painted around 1881 and counted among the first nudes a Japanese artist made in oils.
Kuroda Seiki, Woman Sewing
Kuroda's model is a woman he grew close to in France, painted in the bright outdoor light that split Western-style painting in Japan when he took it home.
Fujishima Takeji, Black Fan
A woman with a black fan, now an Important Cultural Property, which Fujishima prized above his other works and let go only to the museum's founder.
Takata Rikizo's copy of Ingres's Fountain
A copy nearly 1.5 metres tall, commissioned by founder Ishibashi Shojiro for the museum of copies he once had in mind.
Hazama Inosuke, Seafront Road in Nice
Nice's seafront road as Hazama painted it in 1935, one of the new acquisitions on public view for the first time.