Current ExhibitionsSpecial Exhibition
Emulation and Admiration: Two Stories of Collecting European Art
European Master Paintings from The San Diego Museum of Art and The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

Dates

Tuesday, 11 March - Sunday, 8 June 2025

Hours

9:30 am – 5:30 pm
Fridays, Saturdays 9:30 am – 8:00 pm
Admission ends 30 mins. before closing time

Closed

Mondays, 7 May（Opens 24 March, 5 May, 6 May）

Venue

Special Exhibition Wing

Admission Fees

Adults 2,300 yen, college students 1,400 yen, high school students 1,000 yen

Advance tickets
Adults 2,100 yen, college students 1,300 yen, high school students 900 yen

• * Admission is free for junior high school students and under.
• * Disabled visitors admitted free of charge, with one attendant.
• * Junior high school students and under, disabled visitors must show their relevant student ID,
  proof of age or disability status document upon entry to the museum.
• * College students and high school students must show their relevant student ID upon entry to the museum.
• * Students and faculty members at National Museum of Art Campus Member institutions may view this exhibition on specially priced tickets (students = 1,200 yen, faculty members = 2,100 yen). These tickets are available at the National Museum of Western Art Ticket Office.
• * You can also see the permanent exhibition on the same day of viewing this exhibition.
• * Advance tickets are on sale from Thursday, 2 Janualy to Monday, 10 March 2025.

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Organized by

The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo; The San Diego Museum of Art; Nikkei Inc.; TBS; TBS GLOWDIA, Inc.; TV TOKYO Corporation

With the sponsorship of

Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP)

With the Support of

Embassy of the United States of America

In Cooperation with

JAPAN AIRLINES; The Western Art Foundation

In Special Collaboration with

Manifesto Expo

Traveling Venue

Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art
Wednesday, 25 June –Monday, 13 October 2025

Official website

https://art.nikkei.com/dokomiru/

This exhibition is a collaboration between the San Diego Museum of Art in the United States and the National Museum of Western Art that will combine a total of 88 works from the collections of the two museums to introduce the unique charms and evolution of a wide range of Western art from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century through dialogues among the works.

Mainly during the 1930s, the San Diego Museum of Art built what was one of the greatest collections of European Old Master paintings in the western United States at that time in terms of both quality and scale. It is a unique museum that strongly reflects the history and culture of the San Diego area as well as the tastes of its benefactors, and its collection contains numerous masterpieces including early Renaissance and seventeenth-century Spanish paintings. Meanwhile, the National Museum of Western Art was established in 1959 based on Kojiro Matsukata’s collection of mainly Impressionist art and began systematically collecting Old Master paintings in the late 1960s. Since then, it has gone on to build and enrich a comprehensive collection that covers the major schools and genres of Western art history based on studies and surveys by its successive directors and researchers.

This exhibition will feature artworks from the collections of the two museums divided into 36 subthemes consisting of pairs and small groups. It will aim to provide a lucid introduction to the fascinating course of Western art history from the Renaissance to the Impressionists through comparison-based dialogues among the works. Additionally, the museums share a common ground in collecting European art despite being located in two non-European countries, Japan and the United States. The exhibition will also focus on this aspect and introduce the objectives and ideals that served as the bases for the two museums’ collection of Western paintings while comparing and contrasting masterpieces in their respective collections.

Furthermore, an additional five paintings from the San Diego Museum of Art will be displayed in the permanent collection galleries of the National Museum of Western Art during the exhibition period as an attempt at further dialogue between the collections. All 49 artworks from the San Diego Museum of Art, including these ones, will be on display for the first time ever in Japan.

Exhibition Checklist (PDF file, about 410KB)