The Japan Ukiyo-e Museum is a privately owned Japanese art museum in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture. It holds over 100,000 Japanese woodblock prints, regarded as the world's largest collection of this form of art.
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Matsumoto city rekishi-no-sato Museum
4.1
(90)
食彩和楽つづみ
4.0
(146)
ナンハウス
4.0
(123)
季楽々
4.6
(34)
CoCo Ichibanya
3.8
(174)
$$
This museum is tough to recommend for its normally displayed collection, which is tiny (by tiny, I mean 30 pieces max). It's also not easy to get to, being a 15-20 minute walk from the nearest train station and buses aren't much better. As such, if you're going to visit I recommend seeing what the special collection is that they have on display - their special collections take up their main display room, which is 3x the size of the rest of the museum. If the special collection is not to your taste, I would not recommend visiting.
If it is however (or if you have access to a car and can make the journey without depending on the limited public transit options, it is a charming building with a very good gift shop - there are a number of prints done via woodblock techniques if you're looking for one (plus a lot of other ukiyo-e-related gifts that I haven't seen anywhere else in Japan). In the end I'll give it four stars for the quality of their special collection curation, the format shop, and decent AC on a hot day... just be warned it might not tick all of your...
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As other reviews have already noted, the exhibition space is rather small, but 100% worth the visit. Housing one of the most extensive collections of Ukiyo-e in the world, there are always hidden gems in the mix. I have been to multiple exhibitions so far and they have always been well curated, with descriptions in both Japanese and English.
There is also a video room where they show a documentary on the production of Ukiyo-e, which is also available in English.
The gift shop is also not to be overlooked, offering everything from postcards to high quality woodblock reprints.
The museum is not easily accessible though, as it is situated outside of the main...
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Warning: skip. There's one medium-sized (dingy) room (with some stains on the floor) and only around 40-60 prints.
The rest of the museum is off limits, except--of course--the gift shop. Also--of course--didn't bother to tell us that when purchasing tickets.
Pictures that show the museum are not accurate. The staff, while "polite," sat and ate food and gossiped in the lobby at 3:30pm loudly.
Surely one of the 5 people employed to oversee this single room and postcard cubby could have mentioned that there were no prints to be seen before charging us.
Spend the 2,000 yen on a nice...
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