Museum of Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints was established in 1982, it is based on a huge collection of woodcuts, owned by the Sakai family. It began to collect Yoshitaka Sakai, merchant and philanthropist, who lived in the nineteenth century, and continued his work son and grandson. Today the Museum is a private institution.

The Museum's main building was designed by Shinohara Kazuo, in 1995 it was expanded by the architect the Hub Manihari.

The collection includes prints, screens and old books and, as recognized specialists, is the best in the world. The exhibits of the collection of the Sakai family members gathered in Europe, North and South America, in China and the middle East. The Museum has about 100 thousand exhibits, including works of famous masters of Ukiyo-e, including multicolored woodblock print by katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Hiroshige. Hokusai worked under a variety of aliases and their number (about thirty) was superior to other engravers and xylographs. Utagawa Hiroshige was known under the name of Ando Hiroshige as the author of beautiful landscapes, subtly conveys the state of nature. His hand are about five and a half thousand engravings.

Ukiyo-e is the direction in Japanese visual art, which became popular in the second half of the XVII century. The word "Ukiyo-e" can be translated as "images of a changing world". Separate genres of Ukiyo-e depict famous actors of the Kabuki theater, beauties, samurai, scenery, also there is a genre of erotic prints and the genre known as "flowers and birds".

On the creation of Ukiyo-e worked three people – an artist, Carver and printer. The artist drew a sketch, and the cutter directly over the paper cut out figure on the Board from pear wood, cherry or boxwood. The number of such wooden forms could reach dozens, and each form corresponds to one tone or color. Subsequently, the printer using these forms made impressions on wet rice paper.