Hayashibara Museum of Art

The Hayashibara Museum of Art is a private art museum in Kita Ward, Okayama, just west of the inner moat of Okayama Castle. Its site was part of the castle's Ninomaru residence, where the taimenjo (対面所), the hall for receiving guests, once stood.

History

Hayashibara Ichiro (1908 to 1961) took over his family's starch-syrup business and built Japan's largest syrup factory. He studied and collected swords from his student days and later collected Japanese and East Asian art more widely. After his death in April 1961, his family and friends, among them the governor of Okayama, Miki Yukiharu, set up a foundation that July to carry out his wishes.

The building was designed by the office of the architect Maekawa Kunio and finished in 1963. The museum opened on 1 October 1964 as the Okayama Museum of Art and took back the Hayashibara name in 1986.

The collection

The collection joins the paintings and crafts Hayashibara gathered with furnishings of the Ikeda family, the former lords of the Okayama domain. It numbers about 9,000 works: swords and their mountings, armour, Noh masks and costumes, ceramics, metalwork, lacquerware, calligraphy, paintings and folding screens. Three swords are National Treasures, and 26 works are Important Cultural Properties. The Michelin Green Guide gives the museum one star, its Rakuchu Rakugai screens (洛中洛外図屏風), views in and around Kyoto, two stars and its Noh costumes one star.

There is no permanent display. Works from the collection are shown in turn in themed and special exhibitions.