The Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Meguro, Tokyo, is hosting the second part of its 80th anniversary special exhibition, "Okinawa Crafts from the Japan Folk Crafts Museum Collection," through August 21.

In the late 1930s, the museum's founder, Soetsu Yanagi, visited Okinawa, then considered a culturally backward region far from the center of Japan, and became captivated by the Okinawan crafts. He subsequently returned to Okinawa many times, collecting textiles, pottery, lacquerware, and more. Upon returning to Tokyo, he exhibited these works at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum, promoting Okinawa in various ways.

The exhibition features a wide range of Okinawan crafts from the museum's collection, from pottery with overglaze and line engravings to dyed fabrics such as bingata costumes, silk, cotton, and ramie kasuri costumes and floral woven textiles, and a recently restored vermilion lacquer bowl with a three-headed phoenix design. Also on display are rare pre-war photographs of Okinawa taken by photographer Sakamoto Manshichi, who accompanied Yanagi Soetsu on his third trip to Okinawa.

[Exhibition Information]
"Okinawa Crafts from the Japan Folk Crafts Museum Collection"
Venue: Japan Folk Crafts Museum
Address: 4-3-33 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo
Dates: June 21st - August 21st
Hours: 10:00 - 17:00 (last admission 30 minutes before closing)
*The West Wing is open to the public until 16:30 on the second and third Wednesdays and Saturdays of each month
Admission: Adults 1,100 yen, high school and university students 600 yen, elementary and junior high school students 200 yen