Curator : Kenzo Nakagawa Mr. Nakagawa was born in 1936 in Fukuyama, Hiroshima. He graduated from Gakusyuin-University and joined his father's company, Nakagawa-Sangyou. He visited China often for business. In those days, China had been called red, mysterious and bamboo curtain country. It was difficult to visit China from Japan so China was known as "Close but far country". The cultural revolution in China had just broken out at that time. By this revolution, all existent authority was denied and a new perspective was born. For example, museums and art museums were destroyed. Because the great art was a symbol of bourgeois thinking. Mr. Nakagawa found many art treasure by chance during this major revolution. So he was fortunate and brought back to Japan some works of art which were going to be destroyed. Since then he visited there often and enthusiastically collected Chinese arts. Though Occidental painting was popular in Japan, Mr. Nakagawa insisted that Chinese painting was more beautiful. He started to associate with leaders of the Chinese art world based on this opinion. Thus he has made many friends.His name became famous by associating with Go-Sakujin who is the president of the Chinese fine art association which is an authority on Chinese fine art and the vice president, Ko-Gen. He has visited many place in China and met many artists. Then he wanted people to pay attention to artists who were making works of art under adverse circumstances. At that time, Go-Sakujin suggested to Mr. Nakagawa to establish a Chinese fine art museum. And he also presented museum's logotype which was written by himself. His enthusiasm influenced Nakagawa's decision to establish the museum. He endeavors to introduce these masterpieces to worldwide from this museum. It was held in May, 1997. Beijing Chinese museum in China held an exhibition of Nakagawa museum collection in honor of the 20th anniversary of diplomatic relations normalization between China and Japan. It gave recognition again to Chinese artists and many art lovers. Mr. Nakagawa believes that the 20th century is the Occidental painting era but 21th century will be the Chinese painting era. Seeing the collection in Nakagawa museum will allow people to see great artists of the next generation. He also believes that the Van Gogh and Picasso of the 21th century will be born in China. And he adds as follows "Please come here to discover great artists".