Japanese Folk Crafts Museum

The Japanese Folk Crafts Museum (Nihon Mingeikan) is a museum in the 4th city block of Komaba, Meguro Ward, Tokyo, dedicated to the collection, preservation, research, and exhibition of mingei, the hand-crafted art of ordinary people. Founded in 1936 by Yanagi Sōetsu, the religious philosopher and founder of the mingei movement, the museum occupies a site of 1,818 square meters constructed in a traditional Japanese architectural style. Access is from Komaba-Tōdaimae Station on the Keio Inokashira Line. The institution remains a foundational center for the study and appreciation of folk crafts in Japan, currently managed by The Japanese Folk Crafts Museum Foundation, a public interest corporation.

Yanagi Sōetsu officially announced his desire to establish a folk crafts museum in 1926, together with Hamada Shōji and Kawai Kanjirō, coinciding with the founding of the mingei movement. In March 1935, businessman Magosaburō Ōhara, founder of Kuraray and the Ohara Museum of Art, offered 100,000 yen to help fund the museum. Construction began in 1935 and was completed in 1936. The museum opened in September 1936 next to Yanagi's house, with Yanagi serving as its first director and Hamada Shōji later succeeding him. The opening exhibition was titled "Exhibition of Crafts by Contemporary Artists," featuring work by potters including Shōji Hamada, Kawai Kanjirō, and Tomimoto Kenkichi. In 1982, a New Building was completed on the site of the original main hall, which was subsequently dismantled and reconstructed in Toyota City's folk art museum. In 2001, each building was reinforced and renovated with support from the Nippon Foundation and business circles. The museum publishes a monthly magazine titled Mingei, as well as a Guide of the Japan Folk Crafts Museum (first edition 2016, revised edition 2025).

Among the collection's notable works are a painted Karatsu jar with reed pattern, registered as an Important Cultural Property in 2003 and considered a representative example of Karatsu pottery. Other exemplary pieces include an Edo-period "flowing color" tea caddy (Chatsubo, Shōdai); an eighteenth-century English slipware; an early Edo-period Imari bowl painted with a landscape; a Korean vessel with grapevine design from the middle Joseon dynasty; an Edo-period lacquer bowl with gold and silver painting from Iwate Prefecture; an Okinawan Edo-period garment with goose and mountain pattern in resist dyeing; a nineteenth-century finely woven kimono from Okinawa; a nineteenth-century decorated upper garment from Hokkaidō; a self-portrait of the priest Mokujiki from the Edo period; and a cast-iron tea ceremony kettle (Oniarare-gama) from Yamagata Prefecture.