Guide for the Few

Tokyo, Happening

Edo in Focus: Japanese Treasures from the British Museum

25 July to 18 October 2026

Edo-period screens, scrolls and ukiyo-e prints from the British Museum's Japanese collection, shown in Ueno for the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum's centenary.

Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Exhibition Rooms, 8-36 Ueno-Park Taito-ku, Tokyo 110-0007

The red-brick museum from the Ueno Park promenade

Why it is worth going

The British Museum holds some 40,000 Japanese works, among the most complete collections of Japanese art outside Japan, and this exhibition brings a selection of its Edo-period masterpieces to Tokyo for the museum's hundredth year.1 Folding screens, hanging scrolls and handscrolls hang beside prints by eight ukiyo-e masters, among them Utamaro, Sharaku, Hokusai and Hiroshige.1 The work list includes Maruyama Ōkyo's six-panel screen of a mother tiger carrying three cubs across a river, a two-panel screen of a pine island in rolling waves attributed to Ogata Kōrin, Hokusai's Red Fuji and a run of Sharaku's actor portraits.2 It closes in Tokyo on 18 October and moves to the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, on 31 October.3 On Fridays the galleries stay open until 20:00.1

The approach through Ueno Park to the museum
The approach through Ueno Park to the museum
Sources
  1. 100th Anniversary of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum Edo in Focus: Japanese Treasures from the British Museum. tobikan.jp, read 26 September 2026.
  2. Edo in Focus work list. tobikan.jp, read 26 September 2026.
  3. ENGLISH | Edo in Focus special website. daiei-ten2026.exhibit.jp, read 26 September 2026.
  4. Access & Visitor Information｜TOKYO METROPOLITAN ART MUSEUM. tobikan.jp, read 26 September 2026.

Last checked 26 September 2026.