Kuboshima Seiichirō was an entrepreneur who loved art. Revenue from his bar, Tower, and other activities went toward buying artworks. After some time, he created the Mugonkan (or “Speechless Museum”) in Nagano in 1997. His inspiration came from his admiration for young Japanese artists who died during or soon after World War II, a tragic loss of promising talent. The museum’s mission was to preserve the work of these fallen artists, displaying sketches and paintings they created while in art school. Kuboshima felt that these artworks, though not technically refined, captured the pure passion and unfulfilled dreams of young artists who “wanted to keep painting.” It is hard to imagine how different the Japanese art world would have been if so many talented people had not been lost in war.
Kuboshima originally intended to include the works he had gathered in his existing Shinano Drawing Museum, which he founded in 1979. However, after reflecting on the emotional weight of these pieces, he decided to dedicate a separate museum entirely to them. Kuboshima personally sought out the relatives of these artists, often traveling across Japan to gather these artworks and stories. Despite financial struggles and declining attendance, Kuboshima remained committed to honoring these young artists’ memories.
Based on a photograph of Kuboshima-san addressing an audience upon opening of one of his museums, Skyler has abstracted the scene to imagine the curator addressing so many unfinished canvases as the sun inevitably goes down on the day.
