Past ExhibitionsBack

The Minneapolis Institute of Art is located in Minneapolis, the largest city in the state of Minnesota, in the midwestern United States. Its origins lie in the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, which twenty-five citizens of Minneapolis founded in 1883 “to bring the arts into the life of their community.” The museum itself opened in 1915. Its collection of about 90,000 works of art spans prehistory to the present and represents the world’s diverse cultures on every continent. Among them, its collection of Japanese art, which includes nearly 9,500 works, highly esteemed internationally for both its quality and quantity.
This exhibition showcases masterpieces from this collection of Japanese art, with a focus on Edo-period paintings, including works by artists from the Kano school and Rinpa tradition, as well as ukiyo-e artists. Through this selection of masterly works by widely admired artists, including Sesson Shukei, Kano Sansetsu, Ito Jakuchu, Soga Shohaku, Katsushika Hokusai, and Toshusai Sharaku, the exhibition traces the evolution of Japanese painting while also giving a sense of the intentions of the American collectors fascinated by Japanese art who acquired these works and later bequeathed or donated them to the museum.