Adachi Museum of Art | Yasugi

The Adachi Museum of Art ( 足立美術館 ) is a private museum in Yasugi, Furukawa-Cho region, Japan, focused on modern Japanese art and also world-renowned for its exquisite Zen gardens.

Cover image: a view of the Zen gardens of the Adachi Museum of Art; photo Brian Ytsu.

The museum was founded in 1980 by the businessman Adachi Zenko to publicly display his collection of paintings by 20th-century artist Yokoyama Taikan. Furthermore, the museum was also intended as a means to showcase the Japanese gardens Adachi had personally designed. The collection of the museum comprises some 2,000 pieces – including paintings by Yokoyama Taikan, Takeuchi Seiho, Kawai Gyokudo, Uemura Shoen, Hashimoto Kansetsu, Sakakibara Shiho, and other 20th-century Japanese artists – together with works of applied art created by Japanese artists such as renowned ceramist Kitaoji Rosanjin. The Adachi Museum also features a collection of about 250 artworks by contemporary painters of the Japan Art Institute (Inten) such as Miyasako Masaaki.

An interior view of the museum; photo Naoya Fujii.

As mentioned above, the museum features a 165,000 square-meter / 1,776,000 square-foot ensemble of outstanding Japanese-style gardens including a moss garden, a dry landscape garden, a Juryu-an garden, a pond garden, a white gravel and pine garden, and a Kikaku-no-taki waterfall. The gardens are not intended simply as pleasant places, they are indeed considered as artworks as such, not less valuable than the paintings on display inside the museum since, as Adachi says, “A Japanese garden is thought of as a living canvas”.

The program of activities of the Adachi Museum of Art features four special exhibitions a year, mostly based on works from the museum’s collections and designed accordingly to the seasonal changes of the surrounding landscape.
Along with exhibition space, the museum complex also contains two shops, two cafes, and a tea house. Parking for 40 buses and 400 automobiles is available free of charge.

The architecture and landscaping of the museum complex are characterized by a seamless combination of Japanese tradition and modernity; photo Robert Izumi.

Two panoramic views of the Japanese gardens of the Adachi Museum; photos Brian Ytsu.