Collection

The
Ishibashi Foundation
Collection

The Ishibashi Foundation has a collection of about 3,000 works of art. The Ishibashi Foundation Collection, which offers an overview from ancient times to the present, is highly regarded internationally as a valuable cultural property.

It began with the personal collection of Ishibashi Shojiro (1889–1976), who acquired works of art over a period of half a century. Shojiro continued to collect modern Japanese Western-style paintings through exchanges with Japanese artists of Western paintings, and later expanded the scope of his collection to include foreign works of art, mainly works of French Impressionism, and built a large collection. In 1961, most of his collection was donated to the Ishibashi Foundation and made public.

In 1998, the Ishibashi Foundation received a donation from the bereaved family of Ishibashi Kanichiro, the third President of the Board of Directors, solidifying it as the foundation that continues to exist today. In addition, with the transition from the predecessor Bridgestone Museum of Art to the Artizon Museum, the Foundation have further expanded the number and breadth of the collection and are providing people with the enjoyment of art through many exhibitions.

About Collection

In addition to including more modern Japanese Western-style paintings, works of French Impressionism, and Western paintings of the same era, which are the focus of the collection, the Foundation also features a wide range of artworks from modern, abstract, postwar, and contemporary art, and has also expanded the scope to include Japanese paintings in the early modern period. In recent years, the Foundation has also been actively collecting the artworks of female artists.