Creating Japanese Jewellery: Personal Expression and Memory

Creating Japanese Jewellery: Personal Expression and Memory

Date: Saturday 24 October 2026 to Sunday 17 January 2027
Venue: The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (MoMAK), 26-1 Okazaki Enshoji-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8344, Japan

A major exhibition in Kyoto explores post-war jewellery as a form of artistic expression from a Japanese perspective, including around 20 loans from the Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim.

Curated by MoMAK, the exhibition brings together around 350 works by post-war jewellery artists and looks at how jewellery became a medium for personal expression in Japan.

For a long time, wearing jewellery was fairly unusual in Japan. An association of jewellery designers founded in 1964 introduced Western trends to the country and promoted design as something valued for itself, not just for the worth of its materials. Contemporary jewellery took hold in Japan in the late 1970s, and exchanges with conceptual artists abroad continued, including a joint exhibition with Amsterdam and Munich that featured Otto Künzli, among others.

The traffic ran both ways. The Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim’s 1967 exhibition Schmuck ‘67. Tendenzen helped introduce contemporary Japanese jewellery to Europe, and a selection of works shown there is now on loan to Kyoto. They include pieces by Yasuki Hiramatsu and Yasuhiko Hishida alongside European makers Reinhold Reiling, Hermann Jünger, Sigurd Persson, Bruno Martinazzi and Mario Pinton.

“The fact that some of our pieces are returning to their country of origin, and that developments in Europe had such an influence on Japan, is a fascinating aspect of contemporary jewellery art,” says Friederike Zobel, Director of the Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim.

Opening hours:

• Tuesday to Sunday: 10am–6pm (Fridays until 8pm)
• Closed Mondays (except 23 November and 11 January), and on 24 November, 29 December to 3 January, and 12 January

Admission: adults ¥2,000; university students ¥1,300; high school students ¥600; free for junior high school students and younger

Touring in 2027:

• Iwami Art Museum: 20 March to 14 June 2027
• Yamanashi Prefectural Museum of Art: 3 July to 29 August 2027

Find out more: momak.go.jp/English

Image captions:

1. Reinhold Reiling, brooch, 1967. Gold. Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim. Photo: Rüdiger Flöter
2. Bruno Martinazzi, brooch, 1968. Gold, white gold. Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim. Photo: Rüdiger Flöter
3. Yasuki Hiramatsu, necklace, Tokyo, 1972. Gold, fine gold. Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, donated by the ISSP – International Society of Friends of the Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim. Photo: Rüdiger Flöter