The Poe Clan by Hagio Moto: An Exhibition Celebrating the Manga Artist’s Golden Jubilee_{2021.04.17(Sat.)-2020.06.13(Sun)}

Hagio Moto was born in Omuta-shi, Fukuoka in 1949. She has led the Japanese manga world ever since her debut in 1969. This exhibition traces her fifty-year-long career with main focus on her most important work The Poe Clan, which was released in ～1972-76, and a new Poe Clan series resumed after a lapse of forty years. It also includes The Heart of Thomas and numerous other masterpieces. Features exclusive to this occasion include new pictures drawn specially for this exhibition, behind-the-scenes stories of how Hagio creates her manga, and a reproduction of a dreamlike stage set from the performance of The Poe Clan given by the Flower Troupe of the Takarazuka Revue.

Minami Kunzo Seventy Years On_{2021.07.03(Sat.)-2020.08.29(Sun)}

Minami Kunzo (1883-1950) was active as a key figure in the Japanese Western-style painting circles from the end of the Meiji period to the Showa period. After graduating from Tokyo Fine Arts School, he went to study in the UK, where he became interested in crisp watercolors. Upon his return to Japan, Minami presented one after another oil painting in bright colors capturing the sunlight and unconstrained brushstrokes. In his later years, he painted views of the Inland Sea at his hometown Yasuura-cho, Kure-shi, Hiroshima. This is the first time the overall aspect of Minami’s artistic achievements, including the representative works which remain to this day and watercolors he did while studying in the UK, is to be shown in Kyushu.

Kyushu-Yoga II: The Power of the Blackish Soil_{2021.09.18(Sat.)-2020.12.12(Sun)}

Oil painting in Japan was pioneered by artists from Kyushu, many of whom went on to be active in the central art circles. Meanwhile, there were not a few artists who chose to stay in their locality and pursue their own art. Sakamoto Hanjiro, who continued working in Yame, Fukuoka, was one such artist. To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the opening of Kurume City Art Museum, introduced here are works dating from the Meiji period to the present, which contain memories of an indigenous climate or culture such as the gritty feel of the soil or the spontaneous energy of the earth. Through them, the powerful, captivating genealogy of Kyushu-Yoga, i.e. Western-style painting in Kyushu, is traced.