Donation of Materials of MORIOKA Ryuzo
MORIOKA Ryuzo (1878-1961) was a painter who studied under KURODA Seiki (1866-1924). Materials of MORIOKA Ryuzo were donated to TOBUNKEN by his family on November 8, 2023. In response to the donation, SATO Takamasa, Director General of TOBUNKEN, sent a letter of gratitude to a representative of the family by surface mail. The materials consist of 85 sheets of photos of western paintings collected by MORIOKA.
MORIOKA was born in Tottori Prefecture and came to Tokyo when he was twenty years old. He studied painting in KURODA’s private painting school, the Tenshin Dojo, and entered Tokyo Fine Arts School (Tokyo Bijutsu Gakko) in 1901. He also became a private student of KURODA earning his favor. He stayed in Paris for 3 years starting from 1922 and returned to Japan via the U.S.A, where he is thought to have collected the photos.
The collection is composed mainly of religious paintings by Renaissance painters such as Giotto and Raffaello, and all photos were produced by Fratelli Alinari, one of the world’s oldest photography companies, founded in 1852, which treats a large number of photos of Italian artworks . MORIOKA used to lend them to painters in Japan, and most of the photos have an ownership stamp on their reverse side, which suggests they were highly valued.
The materials are being kept at TOBUNKEN Library. We also plan to open their digital images for viewing, so that researchers can access them without causing stress on the original materials.