Aoki Shigeru (1882–1911) and Sakamoto Hanjiro (1882–1969) were both born in Kurume and both pursued a career as an artist. Even after Aoki’s death, Sakamoto remained conscious of Aoki’s existence. In stark contrast to Aoki, who swept through his twenty-eight-year-long life, Sakamoto sedately devoted his eight-seven-year-long life entirely to painting. While these two artists’ course of action, character, and length of life differed, in this exhibition, their careers and lives are introduced with occasional entwinement. This is the first time we are holding an exhibition with focus on Aoki and Sakamoto as a twosome, and it should prove an opportunity to reconsider the history of Western-style painting in Japan from the Meiji era to the Showa era.