Mizuno Museum of Art, Art museum in Wakasato, Japan
The Mizuno Museum of Art is a three-storey museum in Wakasato, Nagano, with four exhibition rooms and a Japanese garden across its front. It opened in 2002 to house the Mizuno Collection of modern and contemporary Japanese painting. A museum shop sells publications and Hokuto Corporation products, and the restaurant Shikisai MIZUNO faces the garden.
The museum opened in July 2002, built around the collection of Masayuki Mizuno (1940–2009), founder of the mushroom producer Hokuto Corporation. After his death in January 2009, Masayoshi Mizuno became chairman. The foundation received public-interest status in 2006 and became a public interest incorporated foundation in 2011. A major renovation closed the museum from 25 November 2019 to 10 April 2020.
The collection centres on modern Japanese painting, including 36 works by Hishida Shunsō, a native of Iida in Nagano Prefecture, the largest holding of his work in Japan. It also holds one of the three known versions of Yokoyama Taikan's early painting "Muga", made in 1897 and shown about once a year.
Take the Nagaden bus line 15 from stop 21 at Nagano Station's east exit; it runs every 30 minutes, takes about 10 minutes and costs 180 yen, but does not operate on Sundays. Alpico line 21 from stop 2 at the Zenkoji exit runs all day, roughly every 10 to 30 minutes, for 200 yen. On foot the museum is about 35 minutes from the east exit.
The collection holds one of the three known versions of "Muga" (1897), painted by a young Yokoyama Taikan; the others are at the Tokyo National Museum and the Adachi Museum of Art. This version, the last of the three, was rarely shown before entering the collection and is now displayed about once a year.
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