Ohara Museum of Art

The Ohara Museum of Art, founded in 1930 by textile magnate Magosaburo Ohara, was Japan's first museum devoted to Western art and fronts the main canal in the Bikan Historical Quarter in a Greek-temple-style building. The main gallery holds paintings by El Greco, Monet, Gauguin, Matisse and Renoir, assembled largely through the museum's relationship with painter Kojima Torajiro, who traveled Europe acquiring works on Ohara's behalf. Beyond the main hall, the museum complex includes a modern art annex, an Asiatic art gallery with Chinese and Middle Eastern pieces, a crafts gallery in a converted rice granary showing folk pottery, textiles and woodblock prints, and a children's art center. A visit to the main gallery alone takes about 45 minutes to an hour; seeing the full complex, including the annex and crafts galleries, takes closer to 1.5 to 2 hours. The museum's canal-front facade with its columned entrance is one of the most photographed buildings in the quarter, particularly reflected in the water at dusk. Crowds are heaviest on weekend afternoons and during Kurashiki's spring and autumn tourist peaks; weekday mornings right after opening are noticeably calmer, especially in the main gallery's smaller rooms. The museum's collection is unusually strong for a regional Japanese institution, making it a highlight for visitors interested in Western art history rather than only Japanese heritage sites.