iSumida Hokusai MuseumRyogoku, Sumida
Best of the Sumida Hokusai Museum: The Sumida River Landscape Scroll and Other Masterpieces
10th-anniversary special exhibition featuring a seven-metre Sumida River scroll back in Japan after a century, plus rare and newly acquired Hokusai works.
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The headline work is a hand-painted scroll about seven metres long, a "phantom scroll" in the museum's words, which came back to Sumida, Hokusai's birthplace, after roughly 100 years away.
Around it, the museum shows the best of its own collection for its tenth anniversary, in five sections on the third and fourth floors: brush paintings, woodblock prints, surimono, illustrated books and works by disciples, Hiroshige among them. Newly acquired pieces and works never shown before are included, among them a pillar print not known to exist in any other collection. The run is split in two, with a partial changeover on 20 October, so the front and back periods do not show exactly the same works. Seven metres of riverbank is the slowest scroll you'll do this week.
Tickets are 1,500 yen for adults and can be booked online. Last entry is 17:00, and the museum is closed on select Mondays and on 20 October.
Editor's pick
The museum's 10th-anniversary show centres on a seven-metre Sumida River scroll, back in Japan after a century, with rare and newly acquired Hokusai works. The real river is a short walk away, for comparison.
Look for
The Sumida River Landscape Scroll
A hand-painted scroll about seven metres long, back in Sumida after roughly 100 years and called a "phantom scroll" by the museum.
A pillar print found in no other collection
A tall, narrow pillar print that the museum says is not known to exist in any other collection.
Works signed Kogaku or Mukodake Hokusai
Pieces bearing an unusual signature of the artist, listed among the rare works from the museum's own collection.
Fish and Shellfish
A hand-painted work from the brush-painting section, shown alongside the scroll.
Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji prints
Woodblock prints from the famous Fuji series, in the section on nishiki-e prints.
Good for
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
With kids
Elementary school age and under are free; middle-school and older students pay reduced prices.
Also at Sumida Hokusai Museum
On now nearby
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Image credits
6
- Best of the Sumida Hokusai Museum: The Sumida River Landscape Scroll and Other MasterpiecesCourtesy of Sumida Hokusai Museum
- The Beauty of Coolness: Edo-Tokyo Museum Glass Craft CollectionCourtesy of Edo-Tokyo Museum
- NHK Taiga Drama Special Exhibition: Brothers in ArmsCourtesy of Edo-Tokyo Museum
- Suikoden: The Water Margin, Outlaws of the MarshCourtesy of Tokyo Station Gallery
- Sumida Hokusai MuseumHiga4, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
- Edo-Tokyo MuseumMarco Almbauer (Wikimedia Commons), CC0