The Hagi Uragami Museum in Yamaguchi Prefecture boasts a magnificent collection of ukiyo-e, Oriental pottery and porcelain works housed in a stylish building designed by well-known architect Kenzo Tange.
Its origin, however, has distant echoes of Japan’s brutal wartime history.
The museum was founded in 1996 with a donation of artworks from Toshiro Uragami, a native of Hagi. Now 88, Uragami nearly sacrificed his life in a suicide mission in the closing days of World War II, but went on to become a successful businessman and amass a vast art collection.