In numbers of eyeballs on artworks Tokyo is the unchallenged World capital of art, and February is the ideal time to exercise your eyes and brains, but go easy, you're only human and Tokyo has too much art. In our art picks for this month: early Japanese realism, Swedish painting, Andy Warhol, contemporary art, and more!
Takeshiro Kanokogi, September 1, Taisho 12, 1924, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
TAKESHIRO KANOKOGI
This exhibition has some things in common with the Masters of Swedish Painting exhibition above. Again we have France as the fount of artistic knowledge, again the love of realism, and again an artist using his foreign skills to express something more local. The show at the SEN-OKU HAKUKOKAN, the Tokyo branch of a Kyoto Museum explored the work of Takeshiro Kanokogi (1874~1941) and is the first large-scale retrospective in around 25 years. Visiting France 3 times before 1918, he ignored the avant-garde ferment and focused on the realism of French classical painting, evolving a style that also evoked the lightness of Japanese traditional art.
Now - 5th April
PRICE: ¥1,500.
Bruno Liljefors, Jay, 1886, oil on canvas
MASTERS OF SWEDISH PAINTING
The TOKYO METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM's "Masters of Swedish Painting" is just that, a top notch selection of Swedish painters, sourced from the Nationalmuseum Stockholm. Names like Carl Larsson and Anders Zorn may not be internationally known, but they are from the top of the tree in their own land, and along with the atmospheric art of Eugène Jansson and the vivid nature paintings of Bruno Liljefors reveal the Swedish project to learn from 19th century art but move in a distinctly Swedish direction, of which sensitive realism was very much a part.
Now - 12th April
PRICE: ¥2,300.
Ryusei Kishida, "Portriat of Sanatsu Mushakoji,"1914, oil on canvas, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
SHINJUKU: THE CITY OF MODERN ART
To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the SOMPO MUSEUM OF ART is holding an exhibition of art focusing on Shinjuku, which has been a centre of avant-garde art since the late Meiji period. Many of these works, like Shunsuke Matsumoto's "Standing Figure," have already been burned into our collective memory by Japanese school textbooks. Also featured are Tsune Nakamura, Ryusei Kishida, Yuzo Saeki, and Aiko Miyawaki. Expect strangely dated but oddly charming attempts at subsuming Western modernism into a fast-changing society.
10th January - 15th February.
PRICE: ¥1,500
More info
Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century (1980) 10 silkscreen prints on
vellum paper framed separately, courtesy of the Foundation Louis Vuitton. Paris
ANDY WARHOL - SERIAL PORTRAITS
It was David Bowie who famously sang, "Andy Warhol, hang him on your wall..." Well, that is exactly what ESPACE LOUIS VUITTON TOKYO have gone and done with their "Andy Warhol – Serial Portraits" show, upstairs from their ritzy luggage shop in Omotesando. As the title hints, the exhibition takes a more personal turn, with drawings, photos, and prints of various people, some of them world famous and others anonymous members of Warhol's inner circle. It's completely free, so remember to show your gratitude by buying a handbag on the way out.
Now - 15th February, 2026.
PRICE: Free
More info
Nude Woman and White Cloth, 1929, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
NARASHIGE KOIDE
This exhibition at the FUCHU ART MUSEUM in Tokyo's Western suburbs looks pretty much like the one I saw at the Yokohama Sogo Museum back in 2001! It certainly features a lot of the same works. But that said, it's well worth a visit, as there is something haunting and memorable about Koide's placid and lugubrious oils. Not to mention his life story, that of a young, sickly Japanese artist whose fascination with Western style painting led him to Paris and and back, and to the creation of peculiarly Japanese version of Western art.
Now - 1st March, 2026.
PRICE: ¥800.
Yuasa Ebosi, The Boy, 2024
YUASA EBOSI | SEA OF MUD / CLOD OF MUD
GALLERY KOYANAGI, up a back alley just off the main Ginza thoroughfare, is always well worth a visit, especially as its free. Right now they have an intriguing exhibition by an ex-finance company employee who turned to art after the company he worked for collapsed. Naturally this experience predisposed him to take a direction influenced by surrealism as shown in the main work, which based a clay doll from the wartime period that he owns.
Now until 7th March
Now until 7th March
PRICE: Free
A.A.Murakami, New Spring, 2017, Aluminum, robotics, bubble, fog, and scent
Installation view: Studio Swine x COS, New Spring, Salone del Mobile 2017, Milan
ROPPONGI CROSSING
Every three years the MORI ART MUSUEM calls in the heavy-weight curators from around the world and puts on its "big serious group show," pitching it as a "snapshot" of the contemporary Japanese art scene. The subtitle of this year's exhibition -- "What Passes Is Time. We Are Eternal" -- points to concerns with the temporal and the spiritual, and includes works from around 20 artists based in Japan or Japanese artists working overseas. Painting, sculpture, and video vie with embroidery, ceramics and other media.
Now – 12th March
PRICE: ¥2,000.
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