Qualla: Pola Museum of Art https://qualla.com/pola-museum-of-art en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:40 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/b/pola-museum-of-art-wp/pola-museum-of-art-restaurant.jpg Qualla: Pola Museum of Art https://qualla.com/pola-museum-of-art Pola Museum of Art: Introduction https://qualla.com/pola-museum-of-art/ Photo credit 663highland, CC BY 2.5. Tsuneshi Suzuki never hired an art advisor. The second-generation head of the Pola cosmetics empire taught himself about painting by reading treatises and monographs, then spent four decades quietly building one of the most remarkable private art collections in Asia. By the time of his death in 2000, he had accumulated over 10,000 works, including 19 paintings by Monet, 16 by Renoir, 19 by Picasso, and 176 by Leonard Foujita. Two years later, those works found a permanent home in the mountains of Hakone, inside a building designed to be nearly invisible. The Pola Museum of Art sits in the forested highlands of Sengokuhara, within Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, and most of it lies underground. From above, the beech tree canopy barely hints at the galleries below. It is a museum that insists you look inward before you look at art.

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]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/b/pola-museum-of-art-wp/xn6b-pola-museum-of-art-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Pola Museum of Art: A Cosmetics King's Private Passion https://qualla.com/pola-museum-of-art/ Photo credit 663highland, CC BY-SA 4.0. Suzuki Tsuneshi was born in 1930 in Shizuoka Prefecture, the eldest son of Shinobu Suzuki, who had founded Pola that same year as a cosmetics research and manufacturing firm. At just 23, Tsuneshi took over the company from his father. By 28, he had purchased his first painting, a...

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Image: 663highland | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/b/pola-museum-of-art-wp/xn6b-pola-museum-of-art-a-cosmetics-kings-private-passion.mp3 0:06 2 full Pola Museum of Art: Buried in the Forest https://qualla.com/pola-museum-of-art/ Photo credit pcs34560 from jawp  This photo was taken with Canon EOS 6D, Public domain. When it came time to build a permanent home for the collection, the challenge was environmental as much as architectural. The chosen site lay within Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, where strict regulations protect the volcanic landscape. The architectural firm Nikken Sekkei respon...

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Image: pcs34560 from jawp  This photo was taken with Canon EOS 6D | Public domain

]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/b/pola-museum-of-art-wp/xn6b-pola-museum-of-art-buried-in-the-forest.mp3 0:06 3 full Pola Museum of Art: Monet, Renoir, and the Weight of Light https://qualla.com/pola-museum-of-art/ Photo credit Vincent van Gogh, Public domain. The collection's strength lies in its depth. Where many museums hold a token Impressionist painting or two, Pola owns enough to trace the movement's entire arc. Nineteen works by Monet span from his early plein air experiments to the late water lily canvases. Sixteen Renoirs capt...

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Image: Vincent van Gogh | Public domain

]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/b/pola-museum-of-art-wp/xn6b-pola-museum-of-art-monet-renoir-and-the-weight-of-light.mp3 0:06 4 full Pola Museum of Art: Walking Among the Beeches https://qualla.com/pola-museum-of-art/ Photo credit Rlbberlin, CC BY 3.0. In 2013, the museum extended its footprint with the Pola Museum of Art Nature Trail, a 670-meter hiking path that winds through the forested grounds. The trail was designed so that a visit to the museum becomes inseparable from the landscape that shelters it. Beech trees arch ove...

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]]> Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/x/n/6/b/pola-museum-of-art-wp/xn6b-pola-museum-of-art-walking-among-the-beeches.mp3 0:06 5 full