VS Kojima Usui

Kojima Usui. He was a banker in Meiji period. He worked for a bank all through his life.
But he had other unique aspects. He loved climbing and loved literature. So, he published a magazine to focus on nature writing. In addition, he was a great collecter of art works.
Now we can watch his great collection in Yokohama Museum of Art. I went to the museum with my customer recently.

I didn't know him before going to watch the exhibition. As everyone could do so, I realised soon his scale-wide world when watching the collection. He was interested in many genres of art, so his collection is huge.

At first, he collected a lot of Japanese pictures which went abroad. When he worked for foreign branches of his bank, he bought many Japanese pictures there.
Why did he buy them not in Japan but in foreign countries?
Japanese didn't understand the value of Japanese art at first, so many important Japanese art works were bought by foreigners in Meiji period. It meaned that Japanese lost their own estates.
Kojima Usui was the one of the first Japanese to understand the significance of Japanese art, so he tried to collect them in foreign countries. In the exhibition, we can watch many famous Japanese pictures by Hiroshige, Hokusai and others.

Not only Japanese works but also Westeners' were the target of his collection. Millet, Manet, Hugo, Degas, Renoir, Gogh, Picasso and many others are included. We can watch these big names at the same time in the exhibition. I think it's great.

In addition of these great art works, he collected strange things like advertisements. Maybe in the eara when he lived, people didn't see them art. But, now, from our viewpoints, these strange things look a kind of art.

I had the chance to talk with the professinal in the museum.
He told me that Usui's world was very big, so even for the professionals, it was very difficult to study him fully.
I heard that there are about 900 works in Usui's collection.
But we can watch only 200 works in the exhibition, because the museum doesn't have enough space to show all his collection. If you have a chance, I can recommend you to watch the huge collection in the museum.