Otsuka International Art Museum

About

Set within Naruto Park in Naruto, Tokushima Prefecture, this museum opened on March 21, 1998, as a project marking the 75th anniversary of the Otsuka Group's founding. The idea traces back to a 1971 proposal for a ceramic-tile business, which took shape with the founding of Otsuka Omi Ceramics in 1973 and roughly a decade of planning and permitting before completion. The museum's defining feature is its reproduction of Western masterpieces at their original size on ceramic plates, chosen for their ability to hold color and form for more than 2,000 years. It displays 1,075 works reproduced from the collections of some 190 museums worldwide; in 2018, all seven paintings in Van Gogh's Sunflowers series were completed as full-size ceramic reproductions and installed together. The building spans five basement levels and three floors above ground, with a total floor area of 29,412 square meters, built at a total cost of roughly 40 billion yen.