Please check our annual schedule in PDF format below.
Our precursor was the Fukuoka Prefectural Culture Center, a facility combining an art museum and a library. It opened on November 3, 1964, in Suzaki Park in the Tenjin district of Fukuoka, a city in Fukuoka Prefecture in the southern Japanese region of Kyushu. The architect Sato Takeo is said to have designed the building in the hopes that it would become “a cultural icon for Fukuoka Prefecture.” The year after the center opened, it hosted a “Tutankhamen Exhibition” that drew about 590,000 attendees and is still remembered today for the line of visitors waiting to enter that stretched out into Suzaki Park, wrapping around the fountain many times.
The culture center hosted independently planned exhibitions based on methodical investigation and research into modern Japanese-style painting, Japanese Western-style painting, sculpture, crafts, and other forms of art in Fukuoka Prefecture. These achievements are the basis for our current activities.
The culture center was split into an art museum and library to carry on its activities, which spanned approximately two decades. Following renovations, we made a fresh start as the Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art on November 3, 1985. We hosted the inaugural exhibition “Visions of Contemporary Art: Transforming Imagination,” kicking off with an exhibition of contemporary art that fully captured the spirit of the times. Meanwhile, the library reopened in 1983 as the Fukuoka Prefectural Library in the Hakozaki neighborhood of the Higashi ward of Fukuoka City.
Since then, we have hosted exhibitions introducing highly diverse forms of artistic representation from Japan and around the world, centering on ones showcasing the many artists with ties to Fukuoka Prefecture. The collection that we have amassed through our activities totals about 10,000 works.
We also hold events for visitors of all ages including lectures related to our exhibitions, gallery talks, workshops, and concerts.
Since our founding, we have mainly collected and preserved works by artists with ties to Fukuoka Prefecture along with works connected to artistic trends in the prefecture and introduced the results of our investigation and research into those works through rotating exhibitions and exhibitions of our permanent collection. Our collection spans a wide variety of genres, from Edo-period to modern and contemporary art in Fukuoka. That collection currently encompasses about 10,000 works.
1. Modern Japanese Western-Style Painting in Japan
Fukuoka Prefecture has produced a number of Japanese Western-style painters who contributed to the modernization of painting in Japan that began during the late nineteenth century. Our collection mainly consists of works by artists with ties to Fukuoka such as Sakamoto Hanjiro, Takashima Yajuro, Kojima Zenzaburo, Nakamura Ken’ichi, Nakamura Takuji, Koga Harue, and Nomiyama Gyoji. In particular, we have devoted many years to research on the painter Takashima Yajuro and feature one of the greatest collections of his work in Japan, totaling about 140 pieces.
2. Painting Materials of the Ogata Family
The painting materials of the Ogata family, a designated cultural property of Fukuoka Prefecture, consist of about 4,700 pieces (copies, designs, etc.) passed down over generations by the Ogata family of painters who served the Kuroda clan, the former feudal rulers of Fukuoka, during the Edo period (seventeenth to nineteenth century). This is an extremely valuable collection of materials that demonstrates the propagation of the Kano school of painting in Fukuoka.
3. Crafts (Kogei)
Our collection contains numerous crafts of Fukuoka Prefecture, including Hakataori textiles, dyed fabrics such as Kurume Kasuri cotton, and pottery such as Agano and Koishiwara wares. We also house the former Kuga Collection consisting of about 400 old ceramics of Kyushu.
In recent years, we have received large-scale donations of works by Kagoshima Juzo (paper-molded dolls), Toyofuku Tomonori (sculptures and drawings), Nomiyama Gyoji (oil paintings), and Egami Shigeo (crayon and oil pastels). We are making daily efforts to enrich our collection with the cooperation of artists and affiliates.
Search the Collection
https://jmapps.ne.jp/fma/
In our “School Museum” program for children, we welcome about twenty school-group visits per year as an opportunity to learn through museum experiences. The Traveling Collection of the Fukuoka Prefectural Museum of Art, which brings our collection to locations throughout the prefecture, is an effort to create more chances for regional communities to appreciate art in partnership with local governments in Fukuoka.
We also give residents of the prefecture opportunities to present their works through initiatives such as the public exhibition “Fukuoka Prefecture’s Art Festival” held every fall, as well as rental of our exhibition rooms.
Our fourth floor contains an art library with numerous open stacks. In this window-lit space, users can browse approximately 40,000 volumes at their leisure, starting with catalogs for our exhibitions and also including catalogs for exhibitions throughout Japan that we have collected since our founding, books on art, and the latest art magazines.
In addition, information on art-related events across the country is available in the informational corner, which displays materials such as exhibition flyers from art museums throughout Japan.
Transportation Access
By Subway: Get off at Tenjin Station (10 minutes walk)
Address
5-2-1, Tenjin, Chuo-ku, Fukuoka, 810-0001
TEL +81-(0)92-715-3551
FAX +81-(0)92-715-3552
E-mail
Hours
Exhibition 10:00-18:00 (Last entry at 17:30)
Entrance to the museum 9:00-17:30
Regular holidays
Mondays (If Monday is a national holiday, the next day will be a substitute holiday)
Year-end and new year holidays (Dec 28-Jan 4)
Admission
Collection exhibitions
Elementary school and Junior high school student: 60yen
High school and University student: 140yen
Adult: 210yen
Admission free for 65 and over, and mentally or physically disabled people with one attendant (proof required).