The Tamesis
Yoshiko Mori, honorary chairman of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, died of pneumonia on December 23. She is 85 years old. The museum confirmed her death in a statement on Tuesday. She and her husband, real estate developer Minoru Mori, who died in 2012, opened the museum, considered one of Japan’s top contemporary art institutions, in 2003.
The museum said in a statement: “In the more than two decades since then, she has devoted herself to contemporary art with great enthusiasm, and as the museum’s founding president, she was delighted to contribute to the museum’s international development and Japanese contemporary art. At this time, we express our deepest gratitude for the kindness and support she gave us during her lifetime.”
Related articles
Yoshiko Mori was born in 1940 and graduated from Tokyo Women’s University in 1964, majoring in arts and sciences. She became a director of Mori Tower Co., Ltd. in 2000 and served as a director of Mori Tower Hotel Co., Ltd. from 2001 to 2015. She served as president of the museum from 2003 to 2024, becoming honorary president in 2024. She founded the Mori Contemporary Art Foundation in 2025.
Forbes Her current net worth is $3 billion, making her among the 50 richest people in Japan.
Located on the top five floors of the Mori Building, a skyscraper in Tokyo’s trendy Roppongi Hills development, the museum focuses on contemporary art from emerging to established artists. Its collection of contemporary art, mainly from Japan and the Asia-Pacific region, is still small, with less than 500 works, according to the museum. These include Ai Weiwei, Cao Fei, Laurent Grasso, Shilpa Gupta, Yayoi Kusama, Lee Ufan, Tara Madani, Mariko Mori, Yoshitomo Nara, Yoko Ono, Dohao Xu, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and other world-renowned artists.
Recent exhibitions include “Love of the Machine: Video Games, Artificial Intelligence, and Contemporary Art”; “The Tokyo Underground 1960s-1970s—A Turning Point in Postwar Japanese Culture”; “Louise Bourgeois: I’ve been to Hell and back. And let me tell you, it was awesome”; “The Gates of the West: African Minggai”; and “The Dawn of Taiwanese Video Art in the 1980s-1990s.”
Minoru Mori supports the international arts community in a variety of roles. From 1999 to 2017, she served as a Trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. From 2007 to 2012, she served as a director of the Tokyo Arts Council. In 2009, she held the same position at the Odawara Art Foundation, and in 2014, she held the same position at the Western Art Foundation. In 2012, she was a member of the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art and the Tate International Council. In London. In 2017, she became an honorary trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
Yoshiro Mori was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor in 2013 and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2025.
