Tokyo Station Gallery is one of the more interesting art venues in the city. Occupying part of the renovated Tokyo Station Building, it combines daring modern design with the building¡¯s early 20th-century, red-brick charm.

This also makes it a rather suitable venue for ¡°Hakubakai to Kofukai: Aspects of Japanese Oil Painting,¡± an exhibition that looks at the 100-year history of an art association that was once avant-garde, but is now endearingly traditionalist.

It is hard to tell the story of the Kofukai group, founded in 1912, without including that of a preceding, more informal Hakubakai, named after a brand of unrefined sake popular among artists. The same personalities can be found in both.