Chohachi Art Museum

The Chohachi Art Museum was established to introduce the accomplishments and works of Chohachi Irie, who was a great plasterer, along with the splendor of other traditional plasterer skills.
This is the sole art museum in all of Japan specializing in plaster art.

Approximately over 2,000 plaster craftsmen from all over Japan gathered and were involved in the construction of this museum.
Traditional techniques were used everywhere in the building, so it draws attention as “a building with a mixture of techniques from the Edo period and the 21st century”.

Chohachi Irie

Chohachi Irie was a plasterer who was born in Matsuzaki town and became a master plasterer establishing a unique genre called “plaster paintings using trowels” which combined the skill of a plasterer and the technique of the Kano school of Japanese painting.
“Kote-e” is the collective term used for decorating the outer walls of buildings using kote (trowels), which are plastering tools.
Chohachi applied brilliant colors on traditional trowel openwork and increased its value as an art.
He actively worked from the late Edo period (1603-1868) to the Meiji period (1868-1912), and created masterpieces mainly for temples around Tokyo, such as Asakusa Kannondo, Meguro Yutenji and Narita Fudoson.

His name became well known all over Japan with the phrase “Chief Izu is number 1 in Japan”.
However, most of his works in the Tokyo area were lost in the Great Kanto Earthquake.
Apart from in his hometowns of Matsuzaki, there are only a few of his works remaining in Ryutaku-ji Temple in Mishima.

Highlights

Thus, about 50 valuable works of Chohachi were collected for the museum, and are displayed in 2 exhibition rooms.

The Chohachi Art Museum building has a very distinctive symmetrical design.
Its designer, Osamu Ishiyama, received the “Yoshida Isoya Award” when designing the Chohachi Art Museum.
In the architectural world, the award is said to be the equivalent to the Akutagawa Award.
Please enjoy the building itself, as well as the remaining exhibited works of Chohachi.

Facility information

Telephone: 0558-42-2540

Opening Hours: 9:00～17:00

Closed: Open all year round

Address: 23, Mtsuzaki, Matsuzaki-cho, Kamo-gun, Shizuoka, Japan

Charge: Adults 500 yen
Junior High School Students and younger children are free.

Website: http://www.izu-matsuzaki.com/publics/index/69/

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Chohachi Art Museum