Kuroda Seiki and Fujishima Takeji were both born in Kagoshima at a time when the Meiji era was about to begin, Fujishima one year after Kuroda. It would be no exaggeration to say that they are the two great masters of modern Japanese Western-style painting. Whereas Kuroda studied Western-style painting in France, Fujishima began by studying Japanese-style painting in Japan and later switched to Western-style painting. The two men met when Kuroda returned from studying abroad and were to promote modern Japanese Western-style painting together. Through the works on display, we shall examine the relationship between Kuroda and Fujishima. We shall also introduce how the works by Fujishima Takeji form the core, together with works by Aoki Shigeru, of Ishibashi Shojiro’s collection