A Poem of Light and Shadow within the Grid: The Architecture, Collection, and Humanistic Spirit of Japan’s MOMAS, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama
Written by Wang Muti
Preface: Japan’s Ark of Art
Located in Kita-Urawa, Japan, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (MOMAS) is a sensory sanctuary that perfectly fuses Kisho Kurokawa’s architectural philosophy of “symbiosis”—the same architect who designed Japan’s highest-ranking national art institution, The National Art Center, Tokyo—with a world-class art collection. Constructed through a rigorous geometric grid, this building nonetheless dissolves the threshold of art through its transparency and openness, so that the moment visitors step inside, they begin a journey of light and shadow that traverses modern history. Since opening on November 3, 1982 (Showa 57), it has served not only as the artistic heart of Saitama Prefecture, but also as an important landmark in the development of modern art museums in Japan.
The most captivating soul in the museum is undoubtedly Claude Monet’sHaystack at Giverny, Sunset. That afterglow, which captures eternity in a fleeting instant, converses with the dreamlike poetry of Marc Chagall, the deconstruction of form in Pablo Picasso, and the surreal dreamscapes of Salvador Dalí, together laying a solid foundation for Western modern art.
Within this context, the beauty tinged with melancholy in Moïse Kisling’s work intertwines with the elegant and mysterious “milky-white skin” of Tsuguharu Foujita, revealing the transnational force of the School of Paris. Meanwhile, the humorous vocabulary of inflated volume in Fernando Botero’s work adds a warm irony to the gravity of modern history.
Turning toward the East, the grand atmosphere of Yokoyama Taikan and the endless polka-dot cosmos of Yayoi Kusama generate a powerful tension in space; as the core of the collection, Ei-Q, with his bold avant-garde experimental spirit, resonates with the subtle Japanese aesthetics represented by Okuhara Seiko and Komura Settai, outlining a clear path by which Japanese art moved from tradition toward modernity.
What is especially admirable about the museum is its concept of “art you can sit on.” Through Gaetano Pesce’s exploration of organic form and Shiro Kuramata’s transparent poetry that seems to disappear into the air, iconic chairs are no longer cold display objects, but instead become designs whose warmth may be touched and inhabited by the body. Alongside the sculptural vitality extended outdoors by Masayuki Hashimoto, and a spatial layout deeply influenced by the landscape aesthetics of Mirei Shigemori, this museum is not merely a vessel for housing masterpieces, but an organism in which art, architecture, and daily life intermingle and coexist amid grid structure and greenery. In doing so, it radiates a unique intellectual brilliance across the international artistic map.
Unlike traditional museums marked by closure and solemnity, it instead faces the public with an attitude of “openness,” “play,” and even “provocation.” The uniqueness of this museum lies not only in the fact that it is the first museum designed by the great Japanese Metabolist architect Kisho Kurokawa, but also in its rare global reputation as a “museum of chairs”, and in its precise articulation of both the “Saitama painters” and Western modern masters.
Since its opening in 1982, MOMAS has now accumulated over four decades of history and has mounted a great number of solo exhibitions. The most representative and comprehensive list of major solo exhibition artists, categorized by period and type, is as follows:
1980s–1990s: Laying the Foundations of Internationalism and the Avant-Garde
This was the museum’s formative period, during which it introduced a large number of artists of experimental character and international stature.
- Yayoi Kusama: Held a solo exhibition in the early 1990s, showing her renowned oil paintings and soft sculptures.
- James Turrell: In 1997, James Turrell: Where Does the Light in Our Dreams Come From?
- David Nash: In 1995, a solo exhibition focusing on natural wood sculpture.
- Ei-Q: In 1997, Fossils of Light: Ei-Q and the World of Photograms, an important research exhibition dedicated by the museum to this local master.
- Donald Judd: In 1999, the large-scale retrospective Donald Judd 1960–1991.
- Jürgen Klauke: In 1997, solo presentation of the German avant-garde photographer and performance artist.
- James Gillray: In 1997, a solo exhibition of the British master of satirical caricature.
- Yasushi Tanaka: In 1997, Painter Yasushi Tanaka: Dreams Across Seattle and Paris.
- Luis Nishizawa: In 1998, a retrospective of the renowned Mexican-Japanese artist.
2000s–2010s: Interdisciplinarity and Contemporary Aesthetics
In this phase, exhibitions became more diverse, encompassing picture books, design, and sculpture.
- Sadamasa Motonaga: The Gutai master, whose playful and experimental picture books and two-dimensional works were exhibited here.
- Tiger Tateishi: Solo exhibition of the brilliant artist who traversed manga, art, and design.
- Masayuki Hashimoto: Known for forged sculpture, his work often entered into dialogue with the museum’s open spatial environment.
- Mirei Shigemori: Although best known for garden design, the museum once mounted a special exhibition dedicated to his design aesthetics.
2020s: Mature Retrospectives and Dialogue with the New Generation
Recent exhibitions have focused on rediscovering overlooked modern masters, as well as on contemporary image-based art.
- Fumiaki Okabe: In 2022, Circus Exhibition: The Fantastical World of Fumiaki Okabe.
- Katsuro Yoshida: In 2024, the major retrospective Touching Objects, Landscape, and the World.
- Kazuyo Kinoshita: In 2024, a solo retrospective exploring the relationship between existence and disappearance.
- Nerhol (Yoshihisa Tanaka & Ryuta Iida): In 2025, Nerhol: Horizontal, Vertical, and Organic, an exhibition of image sculpture.
- Yoko Yamamoto: In 2025, the 50th anniversary exhibition Yoko Yamamoto’s 1970s.
- Tatsuhiko Yokoo: In 2025, the major thematic retrospective Beyond Meditation.
Permanent Solo-Thematic Displays (Long-Term Installations)
Although not short-term solo exhibitions, the museum also maintains long-term thematic areas for specific masters:
- Claude Monet: A permanent research display centered on Haystack.
- Komura Settai: Periodic specialist displays of his graphic design and book design art.
The Philosophy of Architecture — Kisho Kurokawa and the Space of “Symbiosis”
The reason why The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama occupies an important place in architectural history lies in the fact that it was the first museum designed by the world-class architect Kisho Kurokawa (1934–2007). This building is not merely a container for exhibiting art; it is itself a gigantic modern artwork.
1. The Legacy and Transformation of Metabolism
Kisho Kurokawa was one of the central figures of the postwar Japanese architectural movement known as Metabolism. Metabolism argued that architecture should, like a living organism, possess the capacity for growth, change, and metabolism. Yet, by the early 1980s, when Kurokawa designed MOMAS, his thought had already moved beyond a purely technical theory of metabolism toward a more culturally profound “philosophy of symbiosis.”
In the design of MOMAS, one can still perceive traces of Metabolism, such as modular concepts, but more importantly there is a strong exploration of the “intermediate zone” and of ambiguity. Kurokawa attempted in this building to realize a symbiosis between nature and the artificial, interior and exterior, Western geometry and Eastern aesthetics.
2. The “Grid”: An Abstract Infinite Extension
The most striking visual feature of MOMAS is undoubtedly the gray-white grid structure enveloping the whole building.
- The order of geometry: These square modules are not merely decorative; they define the order of space. Kurokawa regarded the grid as a symbol of Western rationalism, yet by hollowing it out and extending it beyond the architectural body, he broke the closure of traditional architecture.
- An aesthetics of incompletion: The beams, columns, and frames extending into the sky make the building appear as if it were still “growing,” suggesting a state of incompletion. This design dissolves architectural boundaries, allowing the eye to pass through the structure toward the sky and trees, and thus blurring architecture and environment.
3. A Modern Interpretation of the “Engawa” Space
Kisho Kurokawa was deeply inspired by the Japanese traditional architectural concept of the engawa—the corridor-like zone around the outer edge of a Japanese house. The engawa belongs neither entirely to the inside nor entirely to the outside; it is a buffering “intermediate zone.”
At MOMAS, Kurokawa designed an undulating glass curtain wall and transitional spaces inserted between the greenery of the park and the body of the building. Before entering the galleries, visitors first pass through these public spaces rich in shifting light and shadow. This not only lowers the psychological barrier of entering an art museum, but also creates an experience of “strolling through the park and entering art almost without noticing.”
4. A Vessel of Light: The Atrium and Circulation
Inside the museum is a large open atrium, the heart of the entire structure. Natural light pours in through geometrically shaped skylights and, as time and season shift, light and shadow draw continuously changing patterns across the walls and floor. Kurokawa calculated the angle of light with precision, allowing “light” itself to become an invisible guide directing the path of visitors. The central staircase is not merely a tool of vertical movement, but resembles a sculpture, allowing people in motion to overlook or gaze upward at the spatial layers from different heights.
Collection Highlights — A Dialogue from Impressionism to Contemporary Design
The collecting strategy of The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama possesses a very high academic value. It does not blindly pursue quantity, but instead focuses on three clear axes: Western modern masters (from Impressionism to Modernism), modern and contemporary Japanese art related to Saitama, and a singular collection of chair design.
Masters of Western Modern Art
MOMAS collects works by many Western masters who exerted profound influence upon the Japanese world of modern Western-style painting. These works not only possess independent aesthetic value, but also serve as a coordinate system through which the development of Japanese modern art may be understood.
1. Claude Monet: Haystack at Giverny
This work, created in 1885, is one of the museum’s treasures. Monet’s Haystack series is world-famous, and the version in MOMAS captures the subtle vibration of light between the haystack and its surrounding environment. For the Japanese world of Western-style painting, deeply influenced by Impressionism, this work serves as the finest textbook for understanding the theory of the division of light and color.
2. Marc Chagall: Double Portrait and Bouquet
Chagall’s works, centered on dream and love, have long been beloved by Japanese audiences. MOMAS’s Double Portrait (1917) depicts the painter and his beloved wife Bella. The twisted space, irrational colors, and floating figures reveal the influence of Cubism and Surrealism upon Chagall, while also preserving his distinctive Jewish lyricism.
3. Pablo Picasso: Still Life
The museum’s holdings include a work from Picasso’s Cubist period. Through the geometric dismantling and recomposition of objects, this work demonstrates a fundamental transformation in the way art sees in the twentieth century. It thus serves as an important point of reference for understanding how Japanese avant-garde movements, such as MAVO, absorbed Western formalism.
4. Moïse Kisling: The Melancholy of the School of Paris
As a representative figure of the École de Paris, Kisling’s work possesses a unique melancholy and a smooth texture. MOMAS’s collection of Kisling reflects, on the one hand, his close intersections with Japanese painters in Paris at the time (such as Tsuguharu Foujita), and, on the other, the esteem in which the School of Paris was held within the Japanese art world during the Showa period.
The Artistic Soul of Saitama — “Urawa Painters” and Local Context
The most central mission of MOMAS is to preserve and research works by artists with deep ties to Saitama Prefecture, especially the Urawa region.
1. The Great Kanto Earthquake and the “Kamakura Writers, Urawa Painters”
After the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, Tokyo was heavily damaged, and many artists moved to the geologically stable and conveniently connected Urawa area in search of solid ground and a quiet place to work. As a result, Urawa became a major artistic enclave in Japan at the time, known as the “Urawa Painters” (Urawa Atelier Village). MOMAS has systematically collected the works of these artists, constructing an important chapter in the history of modern Japanese art.
2. Ei-Q: Explorer of the Avant-Garde
Ei-Q (1911–1960) was a major pioneer of postwar Japanese avant-garde art, and he spent his later years in Urawa, Saitama. MOMAS possesses the most complete Ei-Q collection in Japan. Ei-Q was not bound to a single medium; he worked across oil painting, photography (photograms), and printmaking. He founded the Demokrato (Democratic Artists Association), which exerted deep influence on later generations.
The pointillist oil paintings by Ei-Q in the collection reveal his unique understanding of light and cosmic order, and the psychedelic quality of his color anticipates the visual features of contemporary art.
3. Yasushi Tanaka: The Forgotten Painter of Nude Women
Yasushi Tanaka was a painter highly acclaimed in Paris during his lifetime, yet long forgotten in Japan. Although he did not settle in Saitama, MOMAS’s excavation and collection of his work—largely through donations from collectors in Saitama Prefecture—brought him back into public view. The nude women he painted possess a boldness and wildness, and his use of color is daring, standing in sharp contrast to the mainstream Japanese academic style of the time.
4. Innovation in Nihonga: Okuhara Seiko and Komura Settai
In addition to Western-style painting, MOMAS also collects works by Japanese-style painters connected to Saitama. From the Nanga tradition of the late Edo and Meiji period, represented by Okuhara Seiko, to Komura Settai, famous in the Taisho and Showa periods for illustration and stage design, these holdings reveal both the transformation and persistence of Japanese traditional painting under the pressures of modernization.
Artworks You Can Sit On — A World-Class Chair Collection
If the painting collection forms the flesh and blood of MOMAS, then its chair collection is its most distinctive skeleton. MOMAS is celebrated as a “museum of chairs,” not only because it houses a great number of iconic chairs, but because it practices a museological philosophy of tactile experience.
1. Collection Philosophy: Design as Art
MOMAS considers the chair to be a microcosm of architecture and the art form most intimately connected to the human body. From late nineteenth-century Art Nouveau to contemporary postmodern design, the museum has systematically collected classics of design history.
2. “Today’s Seats”: Breaking the Taboo of “Do Not Touch”
In most museums, exhibits are sacred and untouchable. At MOMAS, however, original designer chairs or high-quality reproductions are placed in corridors and rest areas, and visitors are allowed to sit and experience them freely. This initiative breaks down the barrier between art and life.
- Gaetano Pesce’s Up 5 (Donna): A red armchair shaped like a female body and attached to a spherical form, representing Italian radical design and symbolizing the condition of women under restraint.
- Mae West Lips Sofa: A surrealist classic designed by Salvador Dalí, transforming sensuality and humor into furniture.
- Shiro Kuramata’s How High the Moon: A chair made of expanded metal mesh that, under light, seems like a vanishing ghost, revealing the uniquely Japanese aesthetics of voidness.
This curatorial strategy is extremely forward-looking, for it allows the audience to remember art through the body, and not merely through the eyes.
Leaders — The Vision and Philosophy of Successive Directors
The character of a museum is often defined by its directors. MOMAS’s successive directors have largely been art critics or scholars possessing both academic depth and public vision.
1. Early Foundation: Masayoshi Honma
As the first director (1982–1994), Masayoshi Honma established the museum’s fundamental direction. He promoted research on the Urawa painters, but even more importantly, he set the approachable path of a “museum open to the park” and strongly supported the unique project of chair collecting, which established MOMAS’s differentiated identity.
2. Deepening Academia and Internationalization: Akira Tatehata
Akira Tatehata (2005–2011, later president of Kyoto City University of Arts and Tama Art University) is one of Japan’s leading contemporary art critics and poets.
- Poetic curatorship: Tatehata himself is a poet, and his curatorial style carries a literary and narrative quality. During his tenure, he promoted numerous exhibitions that connected contemporary art with literature and philosophy.
- Advancing Gutai and avant-garde art: Drawing on his deep academic background, he strengthened the museum’s research into postwar Japanese avant-garde art, such as Ei-Q and Gutai, and actively pushed these artists onto the international stage.
- Public outreach: He worked to make the museum a “public square of thought”, organizing numerous lectures and symposia that enriched the museum’s knowledge production.
3. Contemporary Vision and Public Education
In recent years, the museum’s directors and curatorial team have continued seeking a balance between globalization and glocality. They not only pay close attention to Euro-American contemporary art trends, but also actively uncover the potential of young artists within Saitama Prefecture, organizing the MOMAS Contemporary exhibition series to provide a platform for emerging artists. In addition, educational programs such as Museum Cruise, aimed at children and local communities, have become a model for museum education in Japan.
Outdoor Sculpture and Environmental Art — A Museum That Breathes
The artistic experience of MOMAS is not confined within walls. Kurokawa’s original intention was to integrate the museum with Kita-Urawa Park, and thus the outdoor sculpture park is an inseparable part of the museum.
1. Fernando Botero: Nude Woman
This bronze sculpture, plump in form and full of humor, reclines upon the green lawn and creates an interesting contrast with Kurokawa’s hard geometric architecture, revealing the vitality of Latin American art.
2. Masayuki Hashimoto: Wood Thunder in the Fruit
This work combines natural form and metallic texture, and is situated in one of the building’s transitional spaces, responding to the park’s natural environment.
3. Mirei Shigemori: Crustal Movement
This work resonates strongly with Kurokawa’s philosophy of symbiosis, appearing as though it had grown from beneath the ground and thus blurring the boundary between man-made art and natural landscape.
At certain times, the musical fountain in the park dances to classical music, creating, together with the sculptures around it, an audiovisual feast. This method of placing art into the everyday leisure space of the public fully realizes the ideal of a museum without walls.
Conclusion: An Artistic Organism in Continuous Metabolism
The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (MOMAS) has now passed through more than forty years. From Kisho Kurokawa’s avant-garde architectural declaration, to the dialogue between Saitama and the world built by successive directors, and to the many iconic chairs that allow viewers to rest and reflect, MOMAS proves how grand the vision of a regional museum can be.
It is not merely a warehouse preserving works; it is a living organism. Just as Kurokawa predicted, it continues to engage in metabolism and symbiosis with its surrounding environment.
- In architectural terms, it demonstrates how modernist geometry can merge with an Eastern view of nature.
- In terms of its collection, it proves that local history (the Urawa painters) and world art history (Impressionism, Surrealism) can enter into equal dialogue.
- In terms of experience, it allows art truly to touch the body of the viewer through the medium of the chair.
For any art lover visiting the Kanto region, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama is an unmissable sacred site. Here, one may sit on Dalí’s lips sofa, gaze through Kurokawa’s grid at the light and shadow in Monet’s paintings, and feel the resonance of art across time and space. This is precisely the meaning of MOMAS’s existence: to compose freely shifting poems of light and shadow within the order of the grid.
MOMAS as the English Abbreviation of The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama
This name is not merely an abbreviation; in the fields of art and architecture, it also represents three distinct layers of definition and identity:
1. Composition of the Name
- Museum of Modern Art, Saitama = MOMAS
- It is located inside Kita-Urawa Park, Urawa Ward, Saitama City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, and opened in 1982. This abbreviation imitates the naming logic of the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), but adds the “S” of Saitama to emphasize local identity.
2. Architectural Definition: Kisho Kurokawa’s Experimental Field of “Symbiosis”
In architectural history, MOMAS signifies the first museum designed by Kisho Kurokawa.
- Grid aesthetics: It is defined as an architecture composed of abstract geometric grids, symbolizing the rationality of Western modernism.
- Philosophy of symbiosis: It breaks the closed definition of the museum through its extended beams and columns and its undulating glass wall, creating an intermediate zone between architecture and the park’s natural environment (an engawa-like space), thereby enacting the idea of symbiosis between nature and architecture.
3. Functional Definition: “The Museum of Chairs”
In museological terms and in terms of visitor experience, MOMAS equals “a museum you can sit in.”
- Unlike the stern traditional museum principle of “Do Not Touch,” MOMAS is famous for collecting large numbers of world-class designer chairs (including works by Gaetano Pesce and others) and allowing visitors to sit on them. This redefines the display of artworks—from purely visual appreciation to tactile bodily experience.
4. Collection Positioning: A Point of Convergence Between the Local and the International
MOMAS’s collection defines the artistic spectrum of Saitama Prefecture, Japan:
- Local context: It systematically collects works by Ei-Q and the Urawa painters (the artists who moved to Urawa after the Great Kanto Earthquake).
- International vision: It collects works by Western modern masters such as Monet, Chagall, and Picasso, using them as coordinates against which the development of modern Japanese art may be read.
In summary, MOMAS may be defined as follows:
A modern art museum located in Saitama and designed by Kisho Kurokawa, which—with its unique grid architecture, its interactive chair collection, and its status as “Japan’s ark of art”—serves as a cultural landmark devoted to erasing the boundary between art and public life.
The Positioning of The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (MOMAS) as One of Japan’s Major Public Art Museums
As one of Japan’s important public art museums, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (MOMAS) is primarily positioned as a high-level regional core museum and an architectural landmark of art. Within the evaluative framework of museums in 2025, its standing may be compared and analyzed along both domestic Japanese and international dimensions.
I. Domestic Level and Position Within Japan
In the Japanese system of museums, levels are usually distinguished according to the governing body, the breadth of the collection, and academic influence.
- Official status: a top-tier prefectural (public) museum
MOMAS belongs to the prefectural-level category and is the highest-level modern art institution in Saitama Prefecture. While it stands slightly below national institutions such as the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo in administrative resources, among regional museums it belongs to the same front rank as the Yokohama Museum of Art and the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art. - Professional distinction: the globally rare “museum of chairs”
Among Japanese art lovers, MOMAS enjoys especially high esteem because of its distinctive identity as a museum of chairs. By breaking with the traditional museum rule of “no touching” and allowing the public to actually sit on designer chairs in the collection (including works recognized by the Good Design Award), MOMAS possesses a highly differentiated competitive strength among comparable institutions nationwide. - Academic and exhibition evaluation: a center of modern art
The permanent exhibition (MOMAS Collection) changes four times a year, centering on international masters such as Monet, Picasso, and Chagall, together with local modern artists such as Ei-Q. Its curatorial depth is widely recognized by academic circles in the Kanto region.
II. Comparison Within the Global Museum Hierarchy
If MOMAS is placed within a global coordinate system, it may be said to stand at a comparable level to institutions such as the Picasso Museum and the Yokohama Museum of Art, thanks to its high-quality thematic holdings and masterpieces by international masters.
III. Key Comparative Indicators
- Architectural value: a signature work by Kisho Kurokawa
MOMAS is the first museum designed by the Metabolist master Kisho Kurokawa. Its gridded architectural language merges with the natural landscape of Kita-Urawa Park and, even more than forty years after completion, is still considered a masterpiece of modern architecture. For architecture enthusiasts around the world, MOMAS itself is a work of art worth a special visit. - Depth of collection: quality-oriented rather than quantitative
Although its total holdings number around 4,200 works, far fewer than the Louvre’s 350,000, masterpieces such as Monet’s Haystack at Giverny, Sunset ensure MOMAS a voice within international modern art discourse. - Education and public evaluation
Like leading museums in Europe and America, such as Tate in London, MOMAS actively promotes workshops for children and civic participation, transforming itself from a traditional art exhibition hall into an art activity center.
Overall Assessment
From a contemporary perspective in 2025, MOMAS is evaluated as a high-quality public museum with an architectural soul and a strong emphasis on sensory interaction. Although it does not possess the scale of a global Tier 1 institution, in the specific fields of modern chair collecting and Metabolist architecture, it ranks among the world’s leading institutions.
The Core Art Groups That Regularly Exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (MOMAS)
Thanks to its professional exhibition spaces, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (MOMAS) has become the highest hall for the presentation of artistic groups from within and beyond Saitama Prefecture. Over the long term, it has hosted a number of heavyweight groups with historical significance and open-call structures. The following are the core art groups that regularly exhibit there:
Two Major Pillars of Modern Art (Contemporary and Experimental Styles)
These two groups represent the vitality of modern art as shown at MOMAS:
- The Modern Artists Association (Genten) – Saitama Branch
- Status: A long-established open-call modern art organization in Japan.
- Exhibition features: Every year in March, it regularly holds the Saitama Genten. Works include oil painting, contemporary two-dimensional work, photography, and three-dimensional form, with diverse and avant-garde styles.
- CAF.N (Contemporary Art Federation · Neptune)
- Status: A contemporary art organization with a highly international outlook.
- Exhibition features: Usually held from November to December as the CAF.N Saitama Exhibition. It emphasizes “presentness” and often features large-scale installation, abstract painting, and cross-media experimental art, frequently entering into deep dialogue with the museum’s architectural space.
The Largest Official Exhibition
- Saitama Prefectural Artists Association (Kenten)
- Status: The largest prefectural official open-call exhibition in Japan.
- Content: Held every year from May to June. It includes six divisions: Nihonga, Western-style painting, sculpture, crafts, calligraphy, and photography. This is the stage where artists across Saitama Prefecture compete for the highest honors, such as the Governor’s Prize, and it draws the largest crowds during the exhibition period.
“Saitama Branches” of Nationwide Art Associations
Many national Japanese art associations hold their branch exhibitions here each year:
- Taiheiyō Art Association (Taiheiyō Saitama Exhibition): A long-established realist and Western-style painting group, usually exhibiting in October.
- Shutai Art Association (Shutai Musashino Artists Exhibition): Emphasizes the combination of individual expression and modern realism, usually exhibiting in April.
- Shinkōzōsha (Shinkōzō Saitama Branch Exhibition): Includes painting, crafts, and photography, usually exhibiting in September.
- Watercolor Federation (Saitama West Branch Exhibition): Focused on artistic exploration in watercolor, usually held in October.
Calligraphy and Traditional / Semi-Traditional Arts
- Saitama Prefectural Calligraphers Federation (Saitama Calligraphy Exhibition)
- Status: Saitama Prefecture is celebrated as a home of calligraphy, and this exhibition is vast in scale.
- Content: Held every year in September, divided into such types as Chinese characters, kana, and modern poetic calligraphy.
- Saitama Prefectural Papercutting Association (Sai no Kuni Saitama Papercutting Exhibition)
- Content: Exhibited around March each year, presenting refined craftsmanship and modern papercutting art.
