Absolutely. The collection has about three thousand art pieces, constituting the core of our museum. The former Bridgestone Museum of Art—the predecessor to the Artizon Museum—was founded in 1952 by Shojiro Ishibashi to display his personal collection to the public on the second floor of his company’s headquarters. You see how the museum weighed on the collection from the very start.

Those two painters were both born in Kurume, also the hometown of Shojiro Ishibashi, and became the starting point of the Ishibashi Foundation Collection. Shojiro was a student of Sakamoto, and Shojiro first heard about Aoki, who had died young, from Sakamoto and started collecting his works. Eventually, the collection grew more diverse to cover not only modern western-style paintings from Japan but also Impressionist paintings, ancient art, and more recent works from the 20th century. The Impressionist works, for example, he started adding to his collection to save the pieces from being taken away from Japan after the war.

Later, in 1956, Shojiro founded the Ishibashi Foundation, to which he donated most of his collections in 1961. This formed the base of the Ishibashi Foundation Collection, which continues until this day over generations to add to its inventory.

The essential point is that private collections like us have our own tone and manner in collecting artworks, unlike public museums that often try to cover the entire art history—in Japan, no museum has ever succeeded anyway. The highlights of our collection are well-known artists like Renoir, Cézanne, and Picasso, but after we reopened as the Artizon Museum, we also started collecting Japanese artworks like the ones from Rimpa, as well as contemporary art. Furthermore, we are now actively acquiring works by female artists which we haven’t collected before. Of course, we sometimes purchase when we find an excellent piece on the market. Still, even on those occasions, we contemplate the characteristics of the museum, how it would contribute, and what values it would bring to the collection.

First, I have to talk about our name “Artizon”, coined by combining the words “art” and “horizon”, to reflect our determination to impart to many people a sense of this horizon of pioneering art. We are trying to adopt different genres, such as contemporary art and design, to our museum. Those being said, there are two purposes to the “Jam Sessions”: to create new points of view to our existing collection by combining them with contemporary art and to add the latest pieces to the collection through commission works with the leading artists.

Other notable projects include the homecoming exhibitions of the Japan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, the world’s largest international art exhibition. Shojiro Ishibashi provided funds to the Japan Pavilion, and we have supported it since. Thanks to this historical connection, the Artizon Museum has decided to host the homecoming exhibitions. By the way, my first connection to the Ishibashi Foundation was also at the Biennale, when I organized an exhibition of the photographer Miyako Ishiuchi in 2005. Out of lack of funds, I had to come and ask for support of the Foundation directly.

Honestly, I have thought more about public interest since I came to the Artizon Museum. By nature, the role of a museum is to collect and preserve excellent artworks and entrust them to future generations. However, during the last decades, public museums have experienced massive budget cuts, which compelled them to boost the number of visitors to “finance the museum by themselves.” Nowadays, financially suffering museums cannot even afford to organize exhibitions, let alone acquire art pieces.

The Artizon Museum aims at, and acts for, familiarizing art to people in the long term. We have made the entry free for students in order to introduce excellent works to the next generation. We have also started free guidance app service. In addition, we have digitized the whole collection ahead of most other museums and have made the database available to visitors in multiple projects.

Yes, especially the young generation is on the rise. That is partly because students get free admission and it also owes to our contemporary art programs. What fascinates me is that, since our museum has three floors, visitors to a contemporary exhibition might see the Impressionist collection downstairs and become fascinated by them, or vice versa. Art museums usually separate between exhibitions and permanent collections, but in our case, visitors have to travel through all three floors, which sometimes causes unexpected encounters with artists they haven’t seen.

For businesspeople, unique environments like museums can contribute to innovative thinking or create a break for their brains. As the Artizon Museum is situated in the Museum Tower Kyobashi, we would like the workers in the building to feel the advantage and fully utilize it. We have the highest standards in terms of the physical environment for displaying the artworks in their best condition, including the latest air conditioning facilities and purpose-built lighting. The museum is designed to be easily accessible from the office floors above to let them know about the museum and visit the spaces. We offer the workers at the MTK free admission—how appealing is that?

Our efforts in varied educational programs for adults and kids continue from the former Bridgestone Museum. For companies, we can arrange customized programs adjusted to their needs. We are also planning exclusive art lectures for the workers at the MTK.

We are involved in the cultural contribution to the town of Kyobashi in many ways. For instance, our curators lecture at the art and culture seminars organized by Kyobashi Saiku Area Management, and we also take part in the Area Management Association. I participated as a jury member for the invitational exhibition organized by our adjacent TODA Building.

What I feel about the area as a worker myself is that it has a relatively quiet atmosphere for its central location in Tokyo. If you step into one of the small streets away from the major avenues, you’ll be greeted by good old storefronts, and time feels slower. I hope we can have deeper ties with the area in the future and attract more visitors from all over Japan. I think that is the advantage of a museum in an urban environment.