Japanese ceramics, textiles, lacquerware, metalworks, woodworks and other crafts often show natural motifs that capture seasonal rich workings of nature using various techniques and materials to create emotion-rich expressions. As usual for the Gallery's spring special show, this exhibition presents beautiful masterpieces featuring floral motifs.

This exhibition presents European crafts and design pieces from the Gallery’s collection. It provides an overview on the history of design from late-19th-century British pieces by Christopher Dresser and Art Nouveau in the fin-de-siècle, to Art Deco and modern design. The show will also include crafts by Bernard Leach, Lucie Rie and Hans Coper.

Turn “?” upside down to produce “!”!? You will be amazed and affected looking at mysterious forms that bring out materials’ quality. With accompanying self-guiding work seet and workshops, this is an attempt to excite children’s intellect and sensitivity. Inviting Coolness—Crafts Gallery for Adults presents masterpieces full of cool impression to let you enjoy beauty of crafts that grows more brilliant in hot summer.

The collection built by Mr. Someno Yoshinobu and Ms. Someno Keiko includes many masterpieces by important ceramic artists in the history of Japanese ceramics, such as Bernard Leach, Hamada Shoji, Arakawa Toyozo, Miwa Jusetsu, Fujimoto Yoshimichi, Shimizu Uichi and Tsukamoto Kaiji. This exhibition presents 150 works from their collection, including 43 pieces they generously donated to us in 2008, to illustrate the charm and characteristics of Japanese ceramic art.

Recent years have seen a flowering of excessively decorated craftworks that seem as if artists’ aim is the act of decorating itself, rather than producing ornamented objects. It seems as though these pieces show signs of the wish to restore primitive relationships between human beings and things through contact with materials. This show explores the possibilities of kôgei (studio crafts) in the 21st century with decoration as a hint.

This exhibition presents about 100 masterpieces with floral motifs, including ceramics, textiles, lacquerware, woodworks, bamboo works, metalworks and dolls. Even classic plum and chrysanthemum, and commonplace thistles and shepherd's purses are all full of fresh charm seen through artists’eyes. From tiny patterns to forms comprising the whole, please enjoy “flowers” that bring out the flavor of materials and techniques peculiar to crafts.

This is a small but permanent program of the Crafts Gallery to present works of bearers of important intangible cultural assets (living national treasures) and other leading artists and designers at home and abroad. Please check out this program since the exhibits are changed occasionally in connection with special and collection exhibitions or along seasonal topics.

As a powerful leader of postwar Japanese graphic design, Hayakawa Yoshio (1917-2009) co-founded the Japan Advertising Artists Club in 1951 and promoted modern designs with a Japanese touch. This solo show presents the original pictures of his Face series that characterized his career from the 1980s onward with rich colors and emotional expression,
as well as his important poster designs and Shape series, to look back over the designer’s long career.