A museum with a mission is putting art at the heart of the community.

Though nowadays it houses an extensive and diverse collection, the Ohara Museum of Art in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, has another claim to fame: Founded in 1930, it was the first major museum in Japan to specialize in Western art.

In the Edo Period (1603-1867), Kurashiki was a thriving river port, and today, tourists flock to its designated preservation sector along the banks of the Kurashikigawa river, where rows of white-walled storehouses from that era remain.

The founder of the private museum in the heart of this old city was Magosaburo Ohara (1880-1943), president of Kurashiki Boseki (now Kurabo Industries), an entrepreneur and philanthropist who also set up a hospital and research institutes.

Ohara opened the museum in honor of Torajiro Kojima (1881-1929), a pioneer of Western painting in Japan who had died the year before. Kojima had been entrusted by Ohara to collect artworks in Europe. Thanks to Kojima's artistic sense and Ohara's generous funding, universally recognized masterpieces of Western art such as ``Annunciation'' (ca. 1590-1603) by El Greco and ``Te Nave Nave Fenua'' (The Delightful Land, 1892) by Paul Gauguin can be viewed at the museum.

In collecting works, Kojima sought to discover the essence of art in often conflicting Western and Japanese styles. The painting that greets visitors to the museum, Kojima's ``Belgian Girl in Kimono'' (1911), is a Western-style painting by a Japanese artist of a Western woman wearing Japanese traditional dress. The painting symbolizes how Kojima selected Western paintings based on his Japanese aesthetic sense for a museum set amid the traditional Japanese townscape of Kurashiki.

Later, in the hands of Ohara's son, Soichiro (1909-68), the museum expanded its collection to cover diverse styles and forms of artwork, from Western to Oriental, ancient to contemporary and crafts to oil paintings. It also enlarged its display space in the process to accommodate the collection, which today totals more than 3,000 works.

In addition to masterpieces of Western art including ``Portrait of Jeanne Hebuterne'' (1918) by Amedeo Modigliani, the Main Gallery displays works by pioneer modern artists, such as ``Cut Out'' (1948-50) by Jackson Pollock, the American painter known for his ``drip painting'' technique. The Annex is dedicated to works by Japanese artists, including many oil paintings by Sotaro Yasui, a major figure in modern Western painting in Japan. The Craft Art Gallery displays ceramics from the Japanese Folk Art Movement and a collection of major works by Shiko Munakata, a woodcut print artist with close ties to the Ohara family. Kojima's collection of ancient Chinese artwork forms the core of the Asiatic Art Gallery.

Rather than passively exhibiting its vast array of works, the museum participates in community affairs and organizes open events to cultivate art lovers, such as gallery concerts, lectures and participatory tours for children.

True to the words of Magosaburo Ohara, who sought to ``exhibit masterpieces of art for society as a whole,'' the Ohara Museum of Art continues to strive to fulfill its social mission.

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The Ohara Museum of Art is in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, a 15-minute walk from JR Kurashiki Station. Call 086-422-0005 or visit < www.ohara.or.jp >.(IHT/Asahi: January 11,2005)