Finished

Special Exhibition
1945±5 War and Reconstruction: How Artists Faced the Turbulent Period

2016.7.30(Sat) — 10.10(Mon)

Outline
Artwork
Collection
Information
Events

1945±5 is an exhibition that focuses on art in Japan during the five years before and five years after 1945. These were no doubt the most turbulent ten years in modern Japanese history, with the earlier five years overlapping with the Second Sino-Japanese War (which began in 1937) and the war in the Pacific (starting in 1941), and the later five years seeing Japan’s defeat and subsequent occupation by Allied forces. During that decade of trauma and tumult, how did artists express themselves, and in what manner did they relate to society?
The war was fought not with military might alone, but by attempting to mobilize all Japan’s people and devote every resource to the war effort. Under these circumstances, artistic activity was strictly controlled, and artists were required to cooperate with military campaigns. Painters produced war scene paintings or portraits honoring commanding officers. However, these war paintings contained elements that transcended their genre, and the activities of individual artists were not completely restricted to aiding the war effort. While swept up in the colossal wave of history, artists remained a diverse group of creative people expressing themselves through various creative actions. These actions are explored in depth in this exhibition, which presents nearly 200 works, with a particular focus on oil painting.

artists *In alphabetical order
Ai-Mitsu, Tsuguharu FOUJITA, Ichiro FUKUZAWA, Iwami FURUSAWA, Chimei HAMADA,
Manshu HANAOKA, Kaii HIGASHIYAMA, Hakutei ISHII, Heizo KANAYAMA, Yukiko(Yuki) KATSURA,
Yasuo KAZUKI, Tamiji KITAGAWA, Noboru KITAWAKI, Shusei KOBAYAKAWA, Ryohei KOISO,
Tetsuro KOMAI, Toshiro MAEDA, Iri, Toshi MARUKI, Shunsuke MATSUMOTO, Shigeru MIZUKI,
Takayuki MORI, Junkichi MUKAI, Maki NAI, Ken-ichi NAKAMURA, Toshio NAKANISHI,
Taro OKAMOTO, Hidetaka ONO, Toshi SHIMIZU, Kakuo SHINKAI, Kunitaro SUDA,
Tadashi SUGIMATA, Konosuke TAMURA, Masaaki TERADA, Masao TSURUOKA, Kikuji YAMASHITA,
Hiroshi YOSHIDA, Jiro YOSHIHARA, and more…

Information

Exhibition Period

2016.7.30(Sat) — 10.10(Mon)

Opening Hours

10:00–17:00

No admittance 30 minutes before closing

Closed

Mondays *unless Monday is a national holiday, in which case the museum will be closed on the next non-holiday.

Admission

Adults 1,030 (820) yen, University Students 720 (620) yen, High School Students and Seniors [65 and over] 510 (410) yen
*Price in parentheses is that of advance ticket and a group of 30 or more
*Free for children under Junior High School age

Organized by

Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan Association of Art Museums

Supported by

Hiroshima Prefecture, Hiroshima Municipal Board of Education, Hiroshima FM Broad Casting Co., Ltd.,Onomichi FM Broad Casting Co., Ltd.