Hiroshima Museum of Art

The Hiroshima Museum of Art (ひろしま美術館, Hiroshima Bijutsukan) is an art museum in Hiroshima, Japan, founded in 1978. Located in Hiroshima Central Park (Chūō Kōen) in the Motomachi district of Naka-ku, the museum occupies a site north of the Peace Memorial Park. Its collections center on 19th- and 20th-century art, with particular strength in French painting from Romanticism through the School of Paris, complemented by a significant holding of Japanese Western-style oil painting (yō-ga). The institution holds a distinctive place among Japanese regional museums for the depth of its European holdings and its origin as a peace-symbol project marking the centennial of a local bank.

The museum was established by the Hiroshima Bank (広島銀行) to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the bank's founding. Opening on 3 November 1978, the project carried deliberate symbolic weight: it emerged thirty years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and the bank intended the museum to serve as a symbol of peace-restoration. The Hiroshima Bank provided the financial means for both the building and the collection. The site selected lay in a downtown park south of Hiroshima Castle, integrating the museum into the city's central green space.

The collection spans European art of the 19th and 20th centuries and Japanese Western-style painting. The European holdings trace a clear chronological and stylistic arc through dedicated galleries: Romanticism to Impressionism; Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism; Fauvism and Picasso; and the École de Paris. French artists form the core, with numerous works reflecting the reciprocal influence of Japanese art (Japonisme). The Japanese wing comprises modern oil paintings by artists working in Western modes (yō-ga), representing a parallel line of cultural exchange.

Among European works, the museum holds Eugène Delacroix's L'Arabe au tombeau (1838) and an undated Soldat à l'épée. Barbizon School presence includes Jean-François Millet's Le moissonneur (1866-67) and Le ramasseur des fagots, soleil couchant (1867), and Camille Corot's Les baigneuses des Iles Borromées (1872). Impressionist holdings feature Édouard Manet's La femme au soulier rose (Berthe Morisot) (1872) and Femme au chapeau à plume grise (1882); Edgar Degas's La promenade à cheval (1867-68), La femme au tub (1867-68), and Danseuse en robe rouge (c. 1897); Claude Monet's Paysage Hollande (c. 1871) and Matinée sur la Seine (1897); and Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Place de la Trinité (c. 1892), Le bras vif a Croissy (1911), Jugement de Pâris (1913-14), Femme au chapeau de paille (1915), and the sculpture Vénus à la pomme (1913). Camille Pissarro is represented by Baigneuses (Étude) (1896) and Le Pont Neuf (1902).

Post-Impressionist highlights include Paul Cézanne's L'arbre tordu (1888-90) and Paysan assis (c. 1897); Vincent van Gogh's Le jardin de Daubigny (1890), formerly in Berlin's Nationalgalerie; and Paul Gauguin's Jeunes Bretons au bain (1886) and the sculpture Idole à la perle (1892-93). Pointillism appears in Georges Seurat's Vers le bourg (1883) and Paul Signac's Portrieux, Gouverlo (1888) and Paris, Le Pont-Neuf (1931). Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec's Aristide Bruant (1893) represents Parisian nightlife subjects.

Early 20th-century works include Odilon Redon's Pégase, cheval sur le rocher (c. 1907-10) and Les fleurs dans un vase bleu (c. 1912-14); Henri Rousseau's Vue des fortifications (1909); Edvard Munch's Mlle. Meissner (1906-07); Pierre Bonnard's Place Pigalle (1905); and Fauvist and Cubist works by Henri Matisse, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Albert Marquet, Georges Rouault, Raoul Dufy, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Fernand Léger.

The École de Paris gallery holds works by Amedeo Modigliani, Chaïm Soutine, Marie Laurencin, Maurice Utrillo, Moise Kisling, Jules Pascin, Tsugouharu Foujita, Marc Chagall, and Kees van Dongen.

Japanese yō-ga holdings include works by Seiki Kuroda, Takeji Fujishima, Saburosuke Okada, Shigeru Aoki, Sakamoto Hanjirō, Minami Kunzō, Kanayama Heizō, Narashige Koide, Ryuzaburo Umehara, Soutaro Yasui, Ryusei Kishida, Kunitaro Suda, Harue Koga, Yuzo Saeki, and Rei Kamoi, among others.

The museum complex sits within a rectangular garden in Hiroshima Central Park. The main building is a single-story circular structure with a central rotunda, around which four exhibition rooms are arranged. Additional exhibition spaces lie on the garden's north side, connected to the main building by an underground passage. On the south side, the complex houses a café, museum shop, and auditorium.

The Hiroshima Museum of Art is located at 3-2 Motomachi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima, on the edge of Hiroshima Central Park. Access is available via Astram Line Kencho-mae Station, Hiroden Kamiya-cho-higashi Station, Hiroden Kamiya-cho-nishi Station, and the Hiroshima Bus Center. The museum has been open to the public since wartungs since its opening on 3 November 1978.