Yoh Shomei Art Museum

The Kita-Kamakura Yoh Shomei Art Museum opened in 1991 in Kita-Kamakura. Yoh Shomei had been looking for a quiet location full of greenery and no more than an hour from Tokyo by train and found it here in this city rich in history and tradition, and home to such sites as the Buddhist temples of Meigetsuin and Engakuji, famous for their hydrangeas. The building was based on Yoh’s own design, done in the Georgian style, and remains exactly as it was when first built 25 years ago, still welcoming visitors.

Here you can see Yoh Shomei’s watercolors, oil paintings, drawings, handwritten phrases and words, and his picture books about a variety of subjects. We hope visitors to the museum will absorb something of the atmosphere of the culture of Kita-Kamakura, which was once the capital of Japan, and at the same time will feel as relaxed as if they were visiting a friend’s home. Please take your time to appreciate the depth of Yoh Shomei’s works and the emotional resonance of his words. As you think about the images in these works, we hope that this will become a site of spiritual exchange between the artist and you, the visitors.