Nitten (Japanese Art Exhibitions) was founded on the first Bunten (Ministry of Education Art Exhibitions) held in 1907, and adopted its current name in 1 after the war.

In 1928, Tamura Kazuo first entered his work Akayama Afternoon, an orange-hued depiction of a hill in a midsummer field near Chino Station, at the 9th Teiten (the predecessor to the Nitten Exhibition), and it was his first time being selected. At the time, the Teiten exhibition was being held by Isogai Shoten, a Western-style picture frame shop where Tamura worked, so Tamura himself displayed his own work on top of Foujita Tsuguharu's painting. After that, he was no longer selected for the exhibition, but in 1940 he was recommended as a member of the Kofu-kai, and from that time on continued to enter exhibitions such as the Shinbunten, and until his later years the Kofu-kai, Teiten, Shinbunten, and Nitten exhibitions were nationwide open exhibitions where Tamura exhibited works that would become his masterpieces one after another.

This exhibition will feature works selected from the Matsumoto City Museum of Art's collection that have been exhibited at the Nitten Exhibition.

The exhibition features works from his late 80s to his final years, including "Granada Hills," painted after his trip to Europe, "Sunny Moon," painted in mourning the death of his eldest son, Kotaro, and a large-scale 120cm work he created in his mid-40s. What did Tamura see and feel? We hope you will be able to sense this through his works.