Image: Shimane Art Museum, Matsue
Shimane Art Museum in Matsue is showing ‘Tapio Wirkkala: The Sculptor of Ultima Thule’ (Japanese title タピオ・ヴィルカラ 世界の果て), a special exhibition devoted to the Finnish designer Tapio Wirkkala (1915–1985). According to the museum’s exhibition page, the show opened on 26 June 2026 and runs until 31 August 2026.
The museum presents it as the first Wirkkala retrospective in Japan, staged to mark 110 years since his birth and 40 years since his death. Around 300 products and objects have been selected from EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, the Tapio Wirkkala Rut Bryk Foundation and Collection Kakkonen, and are shown together with reproduced drawings and photographs that set out his working process and the background to individual designs.
Wirkkala is described by the museum as a master of Nordic modern design who worked across every kind of material, and the selection reflects that range: the ‘Ultima Thule’ drinking glasses of 1968, the ‘Lehtivati’ leaf dish from the 1950s, the laminated birch ‘Kantarelli’ of 1946 and ‘Lintu’ (Bird) from 1975 all appear among the works listed for the display. The framing places utilitarian production and sculptural object-making side by side rather than separating design from art.
The exhibition is co-organized by Shimane Art Museum with TSK San-in Chuo Television, the San-in Chuo Shimpo newspaper and the SPS Shimane Group, with planning cooperation from EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, the Tapio Wirkkala Rut Bryk Foundation and the publisher Blue Sheep.
The museum opens at 10:00 and closes 30 minutes after sunset, with admission to the galleries until sunset itself. It is closed on Tuesdays, and used its official social media account on 11 August to remind visitors that it was open that day, a Tuesday falling on a public holiday, and that the Wirkkala exhibition remained on view. Same-day admission to the exhibition alone is 1,300 yen for adults, 800 yen for university students and 400 yen for school students, with combined tickets for the concurrent collection display priced at 1,500 yen for adults; online tickets went on sale on 25 May 2026.
With just weeks left before it closes on 31 August, the presentation is the last opportunity in Japan to see this survey of Wirkkala’s work assembled from the Finnish collections that hold the bulk of his output.
