Last Wednesday I went to the Fukushima City Art Museum to see its current exhibit.  I have a membership to this museum, so I like to go alone, and then go back if I wish–with my son or husband, or just plain alone again.  It’s an easy bike ride from my home.   If you arrive by train, it’s an extremeley short train ride (but you have to change to a small, slight hidden station that is next door to the regular station.  It’s easy, but you may have to ask somebody for help.)  Or you can rent a bike–a ten minute bike ride!  For directions to the art museum, check their website.  (It has English information.)  If you walk, it’ll take about twenty or thirty minutes.

This is me in the lobby of the museum.  The travelling exhibit is “Muse: Women before the Artists’ Eyes
from the Collection of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo.”

There were many famous European artists represented.  However, the signs inside the exhibit only listed their names in katakana.  So Monet looks like this: モネ.

If you can’t read katakana Japanese, you won’t be able to read Monet’s name.   And even though I can read katakana, I was unable to decipher it for artists that I am unfamiliar with.  Since the artists were all European, I felt that signs should have included the names of the artists using the Roman alphabet.

Earlier in the week I had asked my son to go with me, and he said, “Is it famous?  Will there be lots and lots of people there like at the Dutch Masters exhibit?  And the Jyakuchu exhibit?”

Both of those travelling exhibits were EXTREMELY crowded.

However the Muse exhibit—despite having equally famous artists–was not crowded at all.  I think the reason is that the Dutch Masters was on loan from a European museum and the Jyakuchu (despite being Japanese art) was on loan from an American museum.  That meant they can’t be normally viewed in Japan, and lots of Tokyites came up to Fukushima’s art museum especially to see those exhibits.  However, the Muse exhibit is from a Tokyo museum–and therefore Tokyoites don’t need to make a trip up here to see it.

Actually, the Jyakuchu paintings were loaned to Fukushima especially to promote revitalization of the area and get tourists coming here.

But anyway….enough of that!  Let’s go outside and explore the grounds of the museum…….

The premises of the museum and the adjoining library are so pleasant.  You can play on the grass, walk around.  It’s a wonderful place for kids!

Cultured museum goers stroll down a path.

On a day with nice weather, you should come here.  There’s also Mount Shinobu right next to this area if you like hiking.

Fukushima’s art museum does not always have a travelling exhibit, but they do always have a permanent exhibit (that I have been to many times, and thus never go to anymore!)  The permanent exhibit is upstairs.

Let’s just stay here all day and read books and enjoy the May weather!  Pretty soon it will get uncomfortably hot, so I am taking advantage of these spring temperatures.

That’s the art museum building…and in the far distance is the prefectural library.  Check that out too, if you are a book lover!

If you are in Fukushima City during the next year, here are the upcoming exhibits!  Please come and visit!