2026.10.31 — 2027.01.31 · Happening now
The British Museum’s Japanese Collection — Osaka
Founded in 1753, the British Museum holds some 40,000 works of Japanese art, considered the most comprehensive such collection outside Japan. From 31 October 2026 to 31 January 2027 its Edo-period screens, hanging scrolls and handscrolls, with prints by eight ukiyo-e masters including Utamaro, Sharaku, Hokusai and Hiroshige, come to the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka. Kitagawa Utamaro’s painting Courtesan Reading a Letter returns to Japan from Britain for the first time, alongside Maruyama Ōkyo’s Tigress and Cubs Crossing a River screen, Hokusai’s block-ready drawings for the Great Picture Book of Everything, his Great Wave and Kuniyoshi’s skeleton triptych. Adult tickets are JPY 2,300 (2,100 in advance).
Kitagawa Utamaro’s painting Courtesan Reading a Letter returns to Japan from Britain for the first time; Utamaro is known mostly through prints, so a work from his own brush is rare.
Alongside it are Maruyama Ōkyo’s Tigress and Cubs Crossing a River screen, Kawanabe Kyōsai’s caricature of a cat riding a melon pulled by mice, and Hokusai’s block-ready drawings for the Great Picture Book of Everything, some shown in Japan for the first time.
The prints bring together eight ukiyo-e masters including Utamaro, Sharaku, Hokusai and Hiroshige, with Hokusai’s Great Wave among them.
There is also a Sharaku actor print of 1794, Hiroshige’s Plum Garden at Kameido from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (the print Van Gogh copied), and Kuniyoshi’s triptych Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre, a giant skeleton leaning out of a ruined palace.
A set of Kanō-school bird-and-flower sliding doors from the late Momoyama to early Edo period, decorated in gold and silver and split between London, Aomori and Seattle for about 150 years, is reunited for the first time.
The British Museum and the Miyakoshi family of Nakadomari, Aomori, each hold part, recently confirmed as one set; the Seattle Art Museum lends the panels once paired with the London ones. A screen of Edo-period Osaka is also on show.
Checked · 2026-10-04
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Closed Mondays and over the New Year, so check the date before going.
Some works rotate during the run.
The museum does not sell advance tickets; buy them online or at convenience stores.
The galleries have no fixed seats, so no seating plan is needed.
Open official guide ↗31 October 2026 to 31 January 2027, 10am–5pm, Fridays until 8pm, last entry 30 minutes before closing. Closed Mondays and on 24 November, 31 December, 1 January and 12 January; open on the Mondays of 23 November and 11 January.
Asia/TokyoNakanoshima Museum of Art is at 4-3-1 Nakanoshima, Kita-ku, Osaka.
Student tickets need ID at entry. Holders of disability certificates and one companion pay half the same-day price at the 2nd-floor ticket counter, no booking needed. Osaka residents aged 65 and over also pay the adult price.
Adults JPY 2,100 (advance)
Confirm accessibility services and companion policies with the organiser before travel.
Dates and entry details refer to this edition; individual sessions may differ.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi (British Museum) · Public domain Image source
Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, the British Museum, the Asahi Shimbun, NHK Osaka and partners
Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre, triptych (1845–46, British Museum), shown in this exhibition; a public-domain image.
Information checked on 2026-10-04
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