Himeji Shiritsu Bijutsukan zō, Kunitomi Keizō korekushon: kindai Furansu kaiga : Mone kara Matisu made = Modern French paintings from Monet to Matisse : Kunitomi Keizo Collection

Abstract

"It has been thirty years since Himeji Castle, whose gleaming form fills the sky above our city, was designated a World Heritage site (1993). In 1994, doctor and art collector Kunitomi Keizo donated the Kunitomi Keizo Collection, rare and precious examples of French modern art, to the city, to help Himeji achieve even further development as an internationally significant cultural city. This gemlike collection is now on permanent display in the Museum's handsome red brick building, itself a registered National Tangible Cultural Property treasured by the citizens of Himeji. To commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of that generous donation, a revised and expanded edition of the Kunitomi Keizo Collection, Himeji City Museum of Art: Modern French Paintings from Monet to Matisse has been prepared. The Kunitomi Keizo Collection is composed of thirty works by twenty-five artists, from Corot and Courbet, who promoted naturalism and realism, to the impressionists, including Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, and then Degas and Renoir, artists who changed the way people see and opened the doors to the modern, the fauvist Vlaminck, Utrillo and Van Dongen of the École de Paris, artists who vigorously acted on their individuality, and Matisse, who led the way to contemporary art. In Japan, which began modernizing in the Meiji period, this collection is appreciated both for presenting the glory of modern French art, loved and aspired to, and for helping understand civil society of the West in the modern period. Interest in the collection has steadily risen, and in recent years the museum has received a continuous series of requests from within Japan and abroad to borrow works from it. In recent years, scholarly research has been undertaken on the collection, enlisting the help of top-ranked researchers from the National Museum of Western Art and other museums both in and outside of Japan"-- Foreword (page 5).