A Japanese Mogul Collects Art as a Form of Giving Back

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/11/arts/kazuo-okada-museum-of-art.html

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HAKONE, Japan — In this small spa resort town about 50 miles south of Tokyo, visitors seek out the mineral springs, some of which require dedication and nerve in ascending along serpentine roads deep into the hills where the waters flow. This town is also home to 14,000 people and two dozen museums, including, galleries dedicated to Meissen porcelain, dollhouses and even “The Little Prince” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

So in 2010, when Kazuo Okada, a gambling magnate who is one of Japan’s richest people, considered where to open a museum to showcase his extensive collection of Asian art, he imagined that both the beautiful landscape and the steady influx of tourists would be a boon.

The Okada Museum of Art, high in the dense forest surrounding Hakone, opened in 2013 and is a state-of-the-art structure, with a spacious outdoor terrace and a marbled footbath at its entrance, a nod to the surrounding medicinal waters. Inside, an abundance of hanging scrolls, ceramics, woodblock paintings and silk screens fills its five stories; a well-tended garden and a cafe are in back.

From the start, Mr. Okada accumulated his treasures with intent: It was not so much for his private enjoyment, but rather with the goal to someday open a museum. The museum staff say this sets the collection apart from Hakone’s other museums and makes it unique among many private collections.

In an introduction to the museum, Mr. Okada wrote, “As my collection’s scope broadened from traditional Japanese paintings to Asian ceramics and Buddhist arts, and as the numbers of each type grew in my collection, I became convinced that I must build a facility that will properly preserve these important cultural treasures, a place where they can be enjoyed by as many people as possible.”

His approach to collecting and exhibiting is not unusual in the art world today, said France Desmarais, a director with the International Council of Museums in Paris. But, she added, “It does not take away from its worth and value or its altruism.”

And in an age of declining state funding for the arts, it may be a recurring and innovative way for patrons to contribute to the public good. On the other hand, some argue that private museums are mostly vanity endeavors, and that the founders have limited management skills.

“In some parts of the world,” Ms. Desmarais said, “especially those with a more recent museum tradition, some private museums can be isolated and struggle for access to national networks and expertise since they are not under the control of, for example, a culture ministry.” In response to this, she said, ICOM issues international basic standards, publishes a peer-reviewed journal and recently released a publication on countering illicit traffic in cultural goods.

Japan’s first public museum — and one of the world’s largest — was the Tokyo National Museum, which opened in 1872. The country’s first private art museum, which opened in 1917 in Tokyo, was also, like the Okada Museum, founded by an industrialist, Okura Kihachiro. His Okura Museum of Art now exhibits some 2,500 works.

Initially, Mr. Okada searched in Tokyo for a good location for his museum, but he could not find the room for what he had in mind in the densely built capital, said Aika Chikamori, a museum spokeswoman.

“He likes Hakone,” she said, “because it has a hot spring resort where he himself can relax, away from busy city life.”

Although the museum is somewhat removed from the center of Hakone, nestled in the steep surrounding hills, that has not affected the flow of visitors (though, according to Hakuo Taneda, a sales manager at the Okada, an overwhelming 90 percent of them are Japanese). Ms. Chikamori said that while the Okada Museum exhibits some 450 pieces from Mr. Okada’s collection on any given day, no one is certain how many pieces he actually owns.

The second floor of the understated building, made of beige marble and glass, houses the owner’s extensive ceramics collection, with many pieces dating from the Yuan and Ming dynasties of China (the late 1200s to mid-1600s), and from Japan’s Edo period (the early 1600s to 1860s).

The spacious, windowless room where these are displayed is so darkened that visitors can find their way around only because of well-lit, non-reflective glass casings that hold, among other pieces, Nabeshima ware, Ko-Imari and Kakiemon porcelain, and a colorful collection of mamezara, or ceramic dishes for serving small amounts of food or condiments. These have designs on them as varied as tigers, bamboo stalks, pagodas and Buddhas.

Equally dazzling is Mr. Okada’s extensive collection of silk screens from the Edo period, which includes works by Ito Jakuchu and Yosa Buson. Jakuchu’s fine depictions of peacocks, phoenixes, flowers and roosters make for a pleasant contrast with the more provocative images of geisha by Kitagawa Utamaro and Katsushika Hokusai, including the latter’s striking “A Summer Morning,” showing a woman, possibly a courtesan, admiring her image in a hand-held mirror; in the background, a man’s kimono is visible.

Hokusai also has a room dedicated solely to some of his lesser known work, and even for those who are familiar with his woodblock prints, a collection of his pornographic drawings at the Okada Museum can quickly make visitors pause. A sign at the door warns that only adults should enter.

Amid the richness of the entire collection, Mr. Okada also gives visitors a glimpse into his own relationship to art with his comments on Ogata Korin’s arresting “Ducks and Snow-Covered Pine Trees.”

“I was nothing more than an ordinary art fan that enjoyed visiting art museums worldwide, as my business appointments permitted,” he has written. But when he encountered Korin’s work, he said, “I was overcome by indescribable power that emanated from that painting, and as if struck by a bolt of lightning, was unable to move from its presence.”