HISTORY

The Museum preserves a wide range of materials related to exhibitions held between the opening of the Seibu Museum of Art in 1975 and the closure of the Sezon Museum of Art in 1999, including installation photographs, documentation of related programs, positive and negative film, photographic prints, audio tapes, and DVDs. It also houses exhibition materials from The Museum of Modern Art, Seibu Takanawa (now the Sezon Museum of Modern Art), which relocated to Karuizawa in 1981, as well as materials from Seibu Department Stores and related cultural facilities. We are currently conducting research, cataloguing, and digitization of these materials while developing the Museum Archives.

With the renewal of the Museum and the launch of this redesigned website, we are pleased to make a selection of these archival materials available to the public. HISTORY offers an opportunity to trace the exhibition histories of the museums that contributed to the formation of the Museum’s collection, as well as the conception and development of Isamu Wakabayashi’s museum garden. It also provides links to related works in the Museum’s Collection Database. As research and cataloguing continue, additional materials will be made available on an ongoing basis. Through this archive, we hope to share the history and legacy of the Museum’s activities with a wider audience.

HISTORY consists of two sections: MUSEUM, which traces the history of the Museum’s activities, and GARDEN, which explores the conception of the Museum garden.

MUSEUM

This section presents a timeline tracing two parallel histories: from The Museum of Modern Art, Seibu Takanawa to the Sezon Museum of Modern Art, and from the Seibu Museum of Art to the Sezon Museum of Art. Through the timeline, visitors can explore major activities and exhibitions, including exhibition texts, installation views, related programs, posters, visual designs, and other archival materials. The timeline also connects to related works in the Collection Database.

GARDEN

Based on the exhibition Isamu Wakabayashi: The Garden of The Museum of Modern Art, Seibu Takanawa, Karuizawa (now the Sezon Museum of Modern Art) (July 22–November 21, 2021) and the related garden tour program, this section examines Wakabayashi’s vision for the Museum garden through contemporary records and archival images documenting its creation.

Opening of the Takanawa Museum

(Takanawa, Tokyo)

Victor Vasarely

Marcel Duchamp

The Takanawa Museum of Art was moved from Takanawa to Karuizawa

Marcel Duchamp

An Inaugural Exhibition of The Museum of Modern Art, Seibu Takanawa

Publication of The Museum of Modern Art, Seibu Takanawa Collection Catalogue

Mainly Selected from The Museum Collection - Man Ray

Tadanori Yokoo: Neo Roman Baroque

Hisao Domoto

Christo from the Rothchild Bank AG Zurich Collection

Art Today 1987

A Slap in the Face of Tasteful Public Toshikatsu Endo, Kenjiro Okazaki,Kazumi Nakamura, Yukihiro Yoshihara

Karel Appel

Natsuyuki Nakanishi

Renamed from the Seibu Museum of Art to the Saison Museum of Art

Wien um 1990
An Inaugural Exhibition of Sezon Museum of Art / for the Anniversary of the 120th Year of Japan - Austria Friendship

Natsuyuki Nakanishi

Art Today 1989

Makiko Ikeda, Hotaro Koyama,Sirai Miho, Noriyuki Tanaka

Man Ray

Art Today 1990

Masami Kondo, Yasuko Toyoshima,Hideyuki Nagashima, Michiko Yano

Japan Art Today

Elusive Perspective / Changing Visions Toshikatsu Endo, Shiro Otake,Kenjiro Okazaki, Hotaro Koyama,Atsuhito Sekiguchi, Toeko Tatsuno Shigeo Toya, Kazumi Nakamura,Kaoru Hirabayashi, Yasumasa Morimura,Tomiaki Yamamoto, Mika Yoshizawa

Magdalena Abakanowicz

Renamed from the Takanawa Museum of Art to the Sezon Museum of Modern Art

ART on EDGE

The Aesthetics of the Borderline: Beyond Paintings and Sculpture Ilya Kabakov, Mike Bidlo,Felice Varini, Ingo Günter,Yoichiro Kawaguchi, Saburo Teshigawara

Collection of Sezon Museum of Modern Art

Evolution of the 20th Century Art

Francesco Clemente

Two Horizons

Publication of the Sezon Museum of Modern Art Collection Catalogue

Art Today 1994

Sanctuary: Thoughts on Sanctuaries in Art at the End of the Twentieth Century Miyuki Ashida, Harumi Kawaguchi,Motoaki Shinohara, Norikazu Suzuki Akira Tatehata, Kosuke Tsumura,Rei Naito, Hiroshi Nakao,Tatsuo Miyajima, Tadanori Yokoo

Bauhaus 1919-1933

Allegory of Seeing

1995: Painting and Sculpture in Contemporary Japan

Art Today 1995

Hitomi Utami, Yuzo Ono,Referendum, Ryuhei Yuasa,Kazue Yoshikawa

Art Today 1997－10th Anniversary

OPERA APERTA Yuji Akatsuka, Azby Brown,Keita Egami, Kenjiro Okazaki,Hiroshi Kuroda, Hotaro Koyama,Yasuko Toyoshima Hiroshi Nakao, Hideyuki Nakazawa,Kazumi Nakamura, Tomiaki Yamamoto,Ryuhei Yuasa