At present, the museum collection consists of approximately 12,000 items. In this continually changing exhibition, we select a group of 200 pieces from the collection and display them in the 3,000㎡ gallery space across the three floors of the museum.

Exhibitions will be renewed every two or three months, with significant changes in the works on display. With a wide range of special displays, you are bound to encounter something new every time you visit the museum. The “Highlight Corner,” where you’ll find a variety of familiar works, and the relaxing “Nihon-ga (Japanese-style Painting) Corner” also promise a rich viewing experience. 

A special display: “There’s Something Happening Here: 1907-1945”

This phase of the event is divided into three parts.

In the Highlight section in Room 1 (4th floor), we introduce a group of prominent works from the collection. A special display, titled “There’s Something Happening Here: 1907-1945,” can be found in Rooms 2 to 10 (4rth-3rd floor), and in Rooms 11 and 12 (2nd floor), we present a large number of photographs, including all 100 works in Moriyama Daido’s Japan: Nippon Theater series.

Stretching across two floors, the special display, “There’s Something Happening Here: 1907-1945,” examines the period from the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War to the conclusion of the Pacific War. While personal freedom was championed in Japan following the Russo-Japanese War as part of what was known as “Taisho Democracy,” there was also a strong tendency for the nation to exert its power against other countries. In other words, there was a simultaneous expansion of the self and the national domain. Around the time of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, there was a sense of cultural maturation and people were also beginning to enjoy a more abundant lifestyle. At the same time, the Sino-Japanese War broke out in the seemingly distant land of China, eventually leading to the Pacific War.

Don’t miss the display of numerous magazines, providing a vivid picture of the era, and the first public showing of a group of paintings that were sold to raise money for fighter planes, and a rare screening of the 1929 film Symphony for the Reconstruction of the Imperial Capital, focusing on the restoration of Tokyo after the earthquake.

*image (left)
Fugitives B from "Wandering Jews", 1941
gelatin-silver print, 30x43cm
© Shiihara Osamu 
MOMAT Collection