Information

The Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art (DIC Kawamura Kinen Bijutsukan) in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo was opened in 1990 by the Japanese resin and ink manufacturer DIC Corporation. The collection was started in the 1970s by Katsumi Kawamura, former president of DIC and founder and first director of the museum. The collection currently consists of approximately 1000 works and includes a wide range of modern American, European, and Japanese artists.

The only Old Master painting in the collection, and one of the museum’s major highlights, is Portrait of a Man in a Broad-Brimmed Hat, painted by Rembrandt and/or his studio in 1635. This painting is considered to be a pendant to a portrait of a lady now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Both panels have been reduced from their original rectangular shape. Kawamura acquired the portrait in 1988. It is one of the very few paintings in Japanese public collections that is closely related to Rembrandt.