IRIE KAZUKO SILK ROAD MUSEUM

Take a Journey to the Silk Road in Local Tokyo!
[updated August 2021]

This small art museum is only a six-minute walk from JR Asagaya Station. It was run by Kazuko Irie (1916-2021), a women who continued her life’s work of paintings portraying the Silk Road up until in her death at age 105. She was a prominent artist who turned her house into a private museum in the year 2000. The museum exhibits more than 100 pieces of her works from small items to large sized paintings including oil on large canvases (259cm x 194cm). They are mostly her life work, paintings of the Silk Road, the historical trade routes spanning across Asia that connected the East and West, as well as flowers and others.

Born in Yamaguchi, Japan, Irie-san grew up in Korea and China where she decided to become an artist before moving to Japan to study painting at Joshibi University of Art and Design in Tokyo in the 1930’s. In 1978 at the age of 62, a visit to Beijing, China in the wake of recovery of diplomatic relations between Japan and China, sparked Irie-san’s sketching journey on the Silk Road that continued until she was 92 years old. The Silk Road Museum displays her artworks from and inspired by that time as well as items from those regions.

The items on display change about once a year. The most fascinating works are Irie-san’s original paintings of the Silk Road– beautiful, magnificent sketches and paintings of inhabitants of a simple lifestyle with their unbounded cheer in song and dance, the hustle and bustle of markets, flocks of sheep, and various other subjects stretched across gigantic, colorful canvases. You will also find rare musical instruments, ethnic costumes and rugs that she herself collected in Central Asian countries.

Small goods like scarves of beautiful colors and postcards of her Silk Road paintings are sold. Please be aware that the museum is open only three days a week, from Friday to Sunday. **Due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation as well as Kazuoko Irie’s recent passing, it is recommended to contact the museum before visiting.

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