Peonies, 1912

After training in Western painting at the University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo, the Japanese artist Torajiro Kojima (1881-1929) definitely chose an impressionist visual language. His work received an award and was even bought by the imperial family. With the support of the Ohara family, he left for Paris in 1908. A year later, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent. Under the direction of the then director Jean Delvin, many painters were trained in Luminism here and came into contact with Emile Claus, who regularly visited the Academy in Ghent. In 1912, Kojima returned to Japan. From 1920 onwards, he returned to Europe several times at the request of Magosaburo Ohara to buy Western art. He brought works by Claus, Delvin, Monet, Matisse, Marquet and Rodin, among others, to Japan. This became the heart of the collection of the Ohara Museum of Art in Kurashiki, the first museum for modern Western art in Japan, opened in 1929. Kojima's paintings will also be displayed there.