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About the Museum

■Umi-Mori Art Museum

 Umi-Mori Art Museum lies amid the beauty of nature on a plateau overlooking the Seto Inland Sea. The museum’s unique collection includes paintings by Takeuchi Seiho and other modern Japanese artists. It also features perfume flacons from Europe, woodblock prints from Qing dynasty China, and early-modern narrative picture scrolls from Japan. The museum holds 3 to 4 exhibitions a year to display this collection to the general public. It also holds workshops and other educational activities that offer visitors a unique opportunity to experience the artistic and cultural heritage of various countries and regions.

■Mori Promenade

 Umi-Mori Art Museum faces the Seto Inland Sea and Itsukushima Shrine, a World Heritage Site. Mori Promenade offers visitors the chance to stroll to the museum while appreciating this beautiful scenery. Based on the idea of harmonization between nature, people and culture, the promenade provides visitors with a place to rest and enjoy the seasonal flowers. We hope you will also enjoy walking amidst this rich natural environment during your visit to the museum.

Click here for more details about the Mori Promenade.

■History

 The museum was founded by the art collector Umemoto Reikiyo based on his belief that art should be shared with the world, not stored away privately. It opened at its current location in 1981 and was originally called the Oshajo Bijutsu Homotsukan. However, its name was changed to Umi-Mori Art Museum in 2005 to appeal to a wider audience. The museum underwent a complete refurbishment and the Mori Promenade was built based on the idea of harmonization between nature, people and culture, with the museum reopening as a place for visitors to enjoy bounteous nature and beautiful art. The museum was closed in December 2014 for seismic retrofitting, but it opened again in March 2018 with a totally new interior.

Mission

■Activities

  • The museum collects, preserves, researches and displays art works and related materials, and it carries out related educational activities.
  • The museum actively releases the results of its research to the public through exhibitions, publications and data disclosure.
  • The museum aims to pursue ongoing, international activities while building a network of art museums and other cultural facilities and research organizations, both within Japan and overseas.
  • The museum strives to make a cultural contribution to the local area through collaborations with art museums and other local cultural facilities and research organizations.
  • As the site of an atomic bombing, Hiroshima is a symbol of the tragedy and horror of war. As a cultural facility in the Hiroshima area, the museum will worktoward the realization of a peaceful society of coexistence and mutual understanding. It will do so by introducing visitors to the diverse values contained in works of art and culture from across the world.

■Logo

As the resplendent Seto Inland Sea unfurls before the eyes amid forests tinged with seasonal colors, there, amidst the bounties of nature, lies a place where visitors can encounter human history and culture through beautiful works of art…
The name ‘Umi-Mori Art Museum’ was chosen with this vision in mind (‘umi’ means ‘sea’ and ‘mori’ means ‘forest’ in Japanese). The vertical line on the logo symbolizes the passage of time from past to present to future, while the horizontal line symbolizes a world where all people and cultures coexist.

The basic color of the two lines reflect the colors of the sea and sky, though the colors also change with the seasons.

■Basic information

Name Umi-Mori Art Museum
Museum Director Aizawa Masahiko
Classification under the Museum Act Registered Museum
Address 10701 Kamegaoka, Ohno, Hatsukaichi, Hiroshima, 739-0481
TEL 0829-56-3221
FAX 0829-56-0661
Homepage https://www.umam.jp
Inquiries info@umam.jp