Hara Museum of Contemporary Art

The Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (原美術館, Hara Bijutsukan) was one of Japan's oldest contemporary art museums, located in the Kita-Shinagawa district of Tokyo's Shinagawa ward. Founded in 1979 by converting a prewar private residence, the museum operated for over four decades before closing its Tokyo location in January 2021. It held particular significance as an early institutional champion of contemporary art in Japan, housed within a rare surviving example of early Shōwa period Bauhaus-influenced architecture. The museum was run by the Foundation Arc-en-Ciel, with Toshio Hara serving as president and continuing his family's collecting tradition. Its closure left the Hara Museum ARC in Gunma Prefecture as the foundation's sole remaining museum.

The museum's origins trace to the collecting activities of Hara Kunizō (1888-1958), who was born Tanaka and became the adopted son of the Hara family. After university studies and positions with the Manchurian Railway, a Tokyo bank, and as director of Aikoku Life Insurance, he also served on the board of the Tōbu Railway and became first president of the Dengen Development Company after World War II, later becoming chairman of Japan Airlines. Like his adoptive father, Hara was an art enthusiast and collector. The museum itself was established in 1979 when his descendants, led by grandson Toshio Hara, converted the family mansion into a public institution. In November 2018, the Foundation Arc-en-Ciel announced plans to close the Shinagawa museum in 2020; the closure was ultimately carried out on January 11, 2021.

The Hara Museum's collection encompassed more than 300 works of modern and contemporary art, with particular strength in pieces from the 1950s and 1960s. The holdings spanned Japanese, European, and American artists, reflecting an international outlook from the museum's inception. Approximately fifty works from the collection were displayed in rotating exhibitions that changed three times per year, supplemented by five special exhibitions that incorporated loans from other collections. The collection was actively expanded over the museum's operating lifetime. Some sculptures from the collection were permanently installed in the museum garden.

The permanent collection included significant works by major international figures. Among the Japanese artists represented were Arakawa, Tomio Miki, Nobuo Sekine, Kumi Sugai, Onosato Toshinobu, and Yamaguchi Takeo. European holdings featured Karel Appel, Jean Dubuffet, Jean Fautrier, Antoni Tàpies, Jean Tinguely, Anselm Kiefer, and Sigmar Polke. The American contingent included Alexander Calder, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Mark Rothko, and Jackson Pollock. Additional artists in the collection included Buckminster Fuller, Yves Klein, Yayoi Kusama, Surasi Kusolwong, Aiko Miyawaki, Yasumasa Morimura, Daisuke Nakayama, Maruyama Ōkyo, Jean-Pierre Raynaud, George Rickey, Cindy Sherman, Pierre Soulages, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Jason Teraoka, Zhou Tiehai, Lee U-Fan, Andy Warhol, and Miwa Yanagi. The museum also hosted significant temporary presentations, including in 1982 the ambient music compositions of Hiroshi Yoshimura, recognized as a landmark event for Japanese environmental music.

The museum occupied a distinctive building originally constructed in 1938 as a private mansion. Designed by architect Jin Watanabe (1887-1973), the structure was executed in a strict Bauhaus style and finished entirely in white, making it a rare surviving example of early Shōwa period modernist architecture. Following World War II, the building served successive institutional functions: it was used by the United States, then housed the Embassy of the Philippines and later the Embassy of Sri Lanka. Since 2003, it has been registered on the DOCOMO Modern Movement list as an architectural example of its era. The museum underwent a major renovation in 2008, which included installation of a new lighting system designed by Shozo Toyohisa. The street address was 4-7-25 Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0001.

The Hara Museum of Contemporary Art was located in the Kita-Shinagawa district of Tokyo's Shinagawa ward, with the official website at http://www.haramuseum.or.jp/. The museum was operated by the Foundation Arc-en-Ciel. Following the January 11, 2021 closure of the Shinagawa location, the foundation's only remaining museum is the Hara Museum ARC (ハラ ミュージアム アーク) in the Ikaho Park area of Shibukawa, Gunma Prefecture. The Tokyo building's future disposition following the museum's closure is not documented in available sources.