Official
Art Gallery in Shop @ Ginza "Shiseido Gallery"
The Tokyo Ginza Shiseido Building, which has impressive red brick exterior walls, was completed in December 2000 (opened in March 2001). This is the first building to apply the "District Planning Ginza Rule (restricted building height restrictions from 31m to 56m)". There is "Shiseido Parlour" on the ground floor and "Shiseido Gallery" on the first basement floor.
This time, we visited Yoshiko Toyoda and Kanae Inoue of the New Value Creation Group of Shiseido Co., Ltd. Art & Heritage Management Department during the exhibition "8th Tsubakikai" (period: August 27-December 18, 2022), and interviewed Kanae Inoue for this blog post.
Shiseido Gallery, the oldest existing art gallery in Japan.
"Shiseido Gallery" opened in 1919. Shinzo Fukuhara, the first president of Shiseido Co., Ltd. (founder, the third son of Arinobu Fukuhara), opened a display hall on the second floor of the cosmetics department building at 11, Takekawacho (currently Ginza 7-8-10). It is said to be the oldest gallery in Japan.
Shinzo Fukuhara stayed in Paris after graduating from Columbia University in the United States, and wanted to provide a place in Japan to present works to future-proof artists with friendships with Japanese painters and sculptors, including Tsuguji Fujita. It seems to have strengthened. Shinzo Fukuhara himself became a painter in junior high school, and while working as a photographer while managing a company, he aims to establish photography art in Japan.
In 1928, a new cosmetic department building with one basement floor and three floors above ground (partially four floors) was completed. A full-fledged gallery space was set up on the second floor, and it was named Shiseido Gallery.
After the war, Shiseido Gallery began with Tsubakikai.
Tsubaki-kai is a group exhibition that was established in 1947 to resume the activities of Shiseido Gallery, which had been suspended since December 1944 due to the Pacific War. The "First Tsubakikai" was composed of such members, including Tsuguji Fujita, Taikan Yokoyama, Yasushi Sugiyama, Ryuzaburo Umehara, and Sotaro Yasui.
In 1974, Shiseido Gallery moved to the 9th floor of the Shiseido Parlour Building. In the 1990s, he reaffirmed the philosophy of "discovering and creating new beauty" and introduced contemporary art by artists living in the same era.
In 2001, the Shiseido Parlour Building was rebuilt and reopened on the first basement floor of the current Tokyo Ginza Shiseido Building. Even though it is the first basement floor, it is the largest gallery space in the Ginza district with a ceiling height of more than 5m for two basement floors.
"shiseido art egg" is the origin of Shiseido Gallery.
shiseido art egg, a public exhibition for up-and-coming artists, began in 2006 for Tsubakikai, which is currently active as a group exhibition by mid-level artists. I think this exhibition can be said to be the starting point of Shiseido Gallery, which inherits Shinzo Fukuhara's desire to provide a place to present works to future artists in Japan.
The schedule for the 16th shiseido art egg to be held next year is as follows. I'm looking forward to it.
Tomomi Oka Exhibition January 24, 2023 (Tuesday) - February 26, 2023
YU SORA Exhibition From March 7 (Tuesday) to April 9 (Sunday), 2023
Soma Sato Exhibition April 18, 2023 (Tuesday) - May 21, 2023
Shiseido Gallery
Address: B1F, Tokyo Ginza Shiseido Building, 8-8-3 Ginza, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
Phone: 03-3572-3901
URL： https://gallery.shiseido.com/jp/