Hirafuku Memorial Art Museum

The Hirafuku Memorial Art Museum opened its doors in 1988 to highlight works by artists with ties to Kakunodate. Its construction was overseen by Ōe Hiroshi (1913–1989), an architect known for blending Western Modernist elements with traditional Japanese architecture in his designs. The museum primarily displays artwork by the modern Japanese painters Hirafuku Hyakusui (1877–1933) and his father Hirafuku Suian (1844–1890). Paintings by other local artists, such as Odano Naotake (1749–1780), are also in the museum’s rotating collection.

Hirafuku Suian briefly studied painting in Kakunodate under Takemura Bunkai (1797–1863) before going to Kyoto to study classical painting. In 1880, he was awarded first prize at an Akita art exhibition for his original painting The Beggar. Suian belonged to the Shijō school of painting, which uses traditional Japanese techniques and materials to produce Western-style objective realist paintings. Suian’s art depicted Japanese landscapes and stories with a warm, rich color palette outlined in bold, solid strokes of black ink. He taught his son Hyakusui the basics of painting in 1890 but died from a stroke later that year.

Hyakusui continued to study art with the backing of his father’s patrons and eventually moved to Tokyo in 1894. There, he became a student of Kawabata Gyokushō (1842–1913), another member of the Shijō school, and studied at the Tokyo Fine Arts School (now Tokyo University of the Arts). Hyakusui was part of an active community of Tokyo artists involved in producing the literary magazine Araragi (1908–1998). Together with other members, he participated in art exhibitions, designed book covers, made illustrations, and wrote poetry. In contrast to his father, Hyakusui’s art is sketch-like, using painterly brushwork and light, pastel colors to depict landscapes and the daily lives of the people around him. He died in 1933, when he suffered a stroke after returning to Akita to pay his respects to his recently deceased brother.