Leaf from a sketchbook with early drawings for the Kyoraku Art Museum, Tokyo, c. 1918

Sir Frank Brangwyn RA (1867 - 1956)

RA Collection: Art

This leaf shows Brangwyn's sketched designs for the proposed Kyoraku Museum of Western art which his patron, the Japanese industrialist Kojiro Matsukata, intended to found in Tokyo. In 1918 Matsukata initiated plans to build a gallery to house his collection and commissioned Brangwyn to design the building. However, the project did not come to fruition because of the earthquake in Tokyo in 1923 and the subsequent demise of Matsukata's shipbuilding business. However, the collection eventually formed the core of the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo.