Foreword

The Mie Prefectural Art Museum first opened in 1982, and in 2002, it celebrated its twentieth anniversary. Since first opening its doors, the curators of the museum have done their best to build the permanent collection in order to pursue the goals the museum has set out for itself. Currently, the collection includes approximately five thousand pieces.

The museum has frequently displayed these pieces in exhibitions of the permanent collection and special planned exhibitions. Also, we have hosted especially large exhibitions on several occasions to share the collection with the public. Finally, on the fifth and tenth anniversaries of the opening of the museum, we published two catalogues that contained black-and-white reproductions of the works in our collection at the time.

The museum was remodeled for the twentieth anniversary of our opening. In a sense, it feels as if we were reborn as a new museum. On this occasion, we have decided to publish a catalogue of some of the most important works we have collected over the last twenty years. In addition to bringing together our most famous works in this catalogue, we have provided large color photographs and explanations of the significance of the works and their place in art history. We hope that these will help readers to understand our pieces better and become familiar with the type of collection we are trying to build. Many of the explanatory passages were in the midst of our art historical work; for instance, a number of them were written for past exhibitions of the permanent collection. A number of them are by curators who have since retired from the museum. Because of this, this catalogue represents a selection of our work at the Mie Prefectural Art Museum over the last two decades.

Finally, I would like to express our warmest thanks to the Cultural Foundation of Okada, the artists, and the collectors who donated their precious artwork to the museum. Also, I thank all of the supporters who helped make the publication of this catalogue possible.

November 2003

Mie Prefectural Art Museum