About Art Gallery

Opened in Tokyo Opera City on September 9, 1999, “Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery” holds special exhibitions about four times a year, introducing various and unique activities of art.
Along with the special exhibitions, the Gallery also holds a solo exhibition series called “project N”, which aims at focusing on emerging Japanese artists, in accordance with the wishes of the late NAMBATA Tastuoki (1905-97) one of the main painters in our collection. Works by the artists who are selected by the selection committee are shown in the corridor on the 4th floor in principle.
The role of the gallery is to aim for the creation of a new culture in the metropolis.。

As we take our first step in the 21st century, our intellects and emotions are becoming more and more the authorities we rely on. The vitality of individual life has been disappearing under the weight of Japan’s economic growth, but to bring out the inherent human sparkle in our daily lives, fresh thinking and unique viewpoints presented through the medium of art can renew that vitality. At the same time they can give us pointers and hope for the future and the wealth of changes it will bring.
From this standpoint, themes of special exhibition including paintings, sculptures, photographs, video works, installation works, designs, fashion, and architecture at Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery are chosen to introduce the works of contemporary artists from around the world who express their energy through their art. Most art works depend greatly on interaction with the environment in which they are viewed. For this reason, the 4 galleries in Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery were designed based on the “white cube” concept, considered the ideal for displaying various arts. The exhibition room sizes, ceiling heights, natural light strategy, positioning of artificial lighting ,and the internal finish of the exhibition rooms were all designed on the bases of this concept.

Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery houses the collection which was mainly put together by Mr. TERADA Kotaro, one of the operators of Tokyo Opera City. Mr.Terada started the collection as part of his participation in the cultural activities of Tokyo Opera City, then with great benevolence, donated the collection to the Art Gallery. Consisting of approximately 4,000 works, mainly by post-war Japanese artists, the collection includes oil paintings, watercolors, nihon-ga, prints, drawings, sculpture, and other media. It represents a bird’s eye view of the massive variety of routes taken by post-war contemporary art in Japan.
The backbone of the collection is more than 350 oil, watercolor, and print works by one of Japan’s best known abstract painters, NAMBATA Tatsuoki(1905-97). There are also more than 280 works by Tatsuoki’s second son, NAMBATA Fumio(1914-74) making the collection one of the largest collections of works by NAMBATA Tatsuoki and Fumio, father and son.