Woman Lawyer is a figure painting submitted to the 1978 Nitten exhibition by the Nihonga painter Taiji Hamada. Known for portraiture, Hamada depicted a modern professional woman through vivid color and a poised composition, and the work became the basis for his Japan Art Academy Prize.

A Nihonga portrait of a modern professional woman, shaped by Hamada's clear color and assured handling of the figure.

Around June is a landscape painting by the Western-style painter Shinichi Nishiyama, shown at the eleventh Nitten exhibition. It reflects his direct gaze at nature and his ability to convey seasonal atmosphere and living movement through vigorous brushwork and clear color.

A Western-style painting that captures the vitality of early summer nature through dense brushwork and lucid color.

Mukimuku is a bronze sculpture created by Sukio Sato in 1979. It captures the instant of a human figure turning back, combining an expansive posture with a quiet lyricism that led to its recognition by the Japan Art Academy Prize.

A fleeting gesture of turning back condenses Sukio Sato's gentle, poetic approach to the human figure.

Genncho is a ceramic work by Kanzan Shinkai, recognized by the Japan Art Academy Award for its integration of bird motifs into a vessel form. It is recorded in museum collection data as the 1979 Flower Vase with Design of Black Birds, showing a weighty ceramic presence grounded in Kyoto ware techniques and shaped through glaze, color, and carved surface treatment.

A ceramic work by Kanzan Shinkai that carries the presence of birds through vessel form and glaze.

The Shinwa Bank Main Building is a bank building in Sasebo, Nagasaki, designed by Seiichi Shirai. Combining a white travertine mass with a black aluminum volume, it brings contrasting materials and forms into a charged harmony and stands as a major work of Shirai's mature period.

A mature bank building by Seiichi Shirai, joining stone, metal, mass, and tension.

A Lifetime of Achievement as a Playwright recognizes Chikao Tanaka's broader body of work in drama, direction, and theatrical criticism, especially within the shingeki movement. Through plays such as Maria no Kubi, Kyoiku, and Chidori, his writing brought themes of guilt, redemption, faith, and spiritual longing into postwar Japanese theater.

The dramatic and critical achievement of Chikao Tanaka, who helped give postwar Japanese theater its spiritual depth.

Sataro Sato was honored for his long career as a tanka poet, including the founding and leadership of the tanka magazine Hodo, his lyricism rooted in the shasei method inherited from Mokichi Saito, and his work as a selector for newspaper and imperial poetry circles. From his first collection Hodo through his late works, he helped shape modern tanka with clear language, dignity, and a distinctive sense of light.

A career in tanka that let observation and lyric feeling resonate beneath clear language.

An award recognizing Toru Takemitsu's achievement as a composer. Moving across Western contemporary music, Japanese instruments, film music, chance procedures, and a sensitivity to silence, his work opened Japanese sound sensibilities to an international language of modern music.

Between silence and resonance, Takemitsu connected Japanese sound to the world of contemporary music.

Masaki Uehara was honored for her achievements as a performer of Yamada-ryu koto music. As the second-generation Masaki Uehara, she led the Mamakoto-kai, conveyed the depth of classical vocal and joruri-based repertory, and also contributed through composition and transmission.

An achievement grounded in sustaining Yamada-ryu koto classics while guiding performance, composition, and transmission.

Achievement in the World of Noh recognizes the stage career and contributions of Yaichi Hosho, a waki actor of the Shimogakari Hosho school. Trained under Hosho Arata, he developed a grave and dignified performance style and became an essential supporting presence in postwar noh.

Yaichi Hosho's achievement as a waki actor whose dignified artistry supported postwar noh.

An award recognizing the stage achievements of the sixth Ichikawa Somegoro as a kabuki actor. Grounded in classical kabuki technique, he also worked in new productions based on kabuki, and his acting was valued for linking traditional inheritance with contemporary stage expression.

Classical form and a drive toward new work shaped his achievement as a kabuki actor.