UNDERSTANDING JAPANESE RATIONALE FOR PURCHASING IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN ART AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE ART MARKET

IN THE 1980s

by

Amy Four

Submitted in partial fulfillment Of the requirements for the degree of

Master of the Arts Christie’s Education, New York

2013

_________________________ _________________________ Date Véronique Chagnon-Burke

  i  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to thank my husband for his unwavering love, support,

and encouragement, as well as my parents and sister. I would also like to thank Professor

Véronique Chagnon-Burke for her valuable support, encouragement, and wisdom; Marisa

Kayyem, Julie Reiss, Matthew Nichols, and Robin Reisenfeld for not only educating and

inspiring me but also sharing each of their unique insights on the art world; Karen

Maguire for being the exceptionally helpful and knowledgeable resource she is; I would

also like to thank Michael Findlay of Acquavella Galleries as well as those who prefer to

remain anonymous for taking time to share their invaluable insight. Finally, I would like

to thank friends, especially Moulakshi Roychowdhury, who took the time to read my

lengthy thesis and provide constructive feedback.

  ii  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Illustrations iii Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Contributing Historical Factors 9 Chapter 2 Contributing Economic Factors 21 Chapter 3 Influences on Aesthetic Preferences 32

Conclusion 47 Bibliography 54 Illustrations 58 Appendix I 64 Appendix II 73

  iii  

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures: Oil on Canvas unless otherwise stated

1.1 Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888

1.2 Tsuguharu Foujita, Reclining Nude, 1922

1.3 Edouard Manet, Olympia, 1863

1.4 Ryuzaburo Umehara, Nude and Fans, 1938

3.1 Pablo Picasso, The Mirror, 1932 3.2 Henri Matisse, Apples, 1916 3.3 Pablo Picasso, Girl Before a Mirror, 1932 3.4 Yasumasa Morimura, Portrait (Futago), chromogenic print with acrylic paint and gel medium, 1988

Charts:

2.1 Performance of Various Fine Art Markets 1976 – 2006

2.2 Average Prices of Impressionist Works in Yen and USD

2.3 Foreign Exchange: JPY to USD 2.4 Comparison of the IWOP in USD and the IWOP in JPY

  1  

INTRODUCTION

Did Asian buyers save the Impressionist and Modern art market? Today, many

art world speculators answer with a resounding “Yes!”1 As the art market evolves decade

after decade, the attempt to understand fluctuations regarding price and preferred genre in

the art world frequently leads to mixed hypotheses about what happened. The demand

for art is a complicated issue and any attempt to understand the driving force behind

collectors’ taste can prove to be a complex undertaking. During the late 1980s and early

1990s, the market for Impressionist and Modern art experienced some of the most

extreme conditions in its history. At the same time, Japan’s stock and land prices rapidly

increased in the domestic markets creating a bubble-like behavior. During this period,

there was a rapid increase of Japanese investors bidding on Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist works of art at auction which, at the time, accounted for about 40-50% of

total sales at London-based Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses. In 1987 Yasuda

Marine & Fire Insurance Company paid $39.9 million for Vincent van Gogh's

Sunflowers, 1888, which was, at the time, the world's most expensive painting.2 Three

years later, Ryoei Saito, then Honorary Chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing

Company, broke another record when he purchased Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr.

                                                                                                               1  Marion Maneker, Art Market Monitor, “Emerging Markets,” June 27, 2013 http://artmarketmonitor.com/2013/06/27/did-asian-buyers-save-the-imp-mod-market/?fb_source=pubv1 2 Elaine Kurtenbach. “New Japanese Collectors Drive Up Prices of Western Art: Experts See Their Purchases as Fueling a Worldwide Surge in the Market. Today’s Corporate Buyer is Likely to Have Made Money in Real Estate or Financing,” Los Angeles Times, February 8, 1990. http://articles.latimes.com/1990-02-08/entertainment/ca-657_1_western-art (accessed April 20, 2013).  

  2  

Gachet, 1890, for a hefty $82.5 million.3 There were countless high dollar purchases

such as these from Japanese buyers during the late 1980s, which resulted in a drastic rise

of prices in the Impressionist and Modern art category thereby creating the infamous art

market bubble that grew from 1986 to 1990, and ultimately burst in 1991.

The specific interest of Japanese collectors in the Impressionist and Modern art

category raises a question that this thesis will aim to explore: What was the rationale of

Japanese collectors and dealers for primarily purchasing Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist art in the mid-1980s and early 1990s versus other genres of art? The easy

answer to this question would be that it was due to the economic boom in Japan, which

took place during this time period and resulted in more capital with which Japanese

collectors could purchase expensive art. This common Western explanation conveniently

blames the art bubble on the strong performance of the yen and Japan’s booming equity

market, which resulted in wealthier Japanese collectors who invested their newfound

wealth in art. Consequently, there was an increase in the demand for Western art across

all sectors; however, the demand for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works was, by

far, the most pronounced. (Chart 2.1) This increase in art sales subsequently fueled the

ever increasing, unstable pressure on art prices in Western countries resulting in the art

market bubble.4 While there is often a correlation between economic gains and the art

market, this simple answer is not so simple. The primary objective of this thesis will be

to not only assess contributing economic factors but to also assess other variables, such as

                                                                                                               3  Takato Hiraki et al., “How Did Japanese Investments Influence International Art Prices?,” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 44 (2009): 1490.  4  Fabian Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble on (Post) Impressionism.” Association for Cultural Economics International (ACEI), ACEI Working Paper Series, November 2011, 15.  

  3  

historical and aesthetic factors that contributed to Japanese collectors’ choice of

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art above that of other genres.

The first chapter of this thesis will explore historical factors that likely contributed

to Japan’s preference for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art beginning with the

Meiji Restoration. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 brought with it a multitude of Western

influence, which may have impacted Japan’s national taste for Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist art. According to Christine Guth, a specialist in the history of Asian art,

and her colleagues, the collecting and studying of French painting in late nineteenth- and

early twentieth-century Japan was a direct result of modernist policies implemented by

the Meiji Emperor (r. 1868-1912) and his government. The Meiji and succeeding Taishō

(1912-1926) periods consisted of massive political, economic, and social change in

Japan.5 As the newest, most cutting edge thing during the Meiji and succeeding Taishō

periods, European painting offered a way for international business leaders to flaunt their

social status. Additionally, many collectors viewed the acquisition of avant-garde

European paintings as part of a strategy through which they could assert their, and

Japan’s, place in the global economy.6 European, especially French, painting had a

tremendous impact on Japanese culture in the period between 1890 and 1930, which

could explain why Japan’s most prized marker of social status changed from being a

fifteenth-century Zen ink painting to being an Impressionist nude by Renoir or a Monet

landscape, for example.7 This thesis will aim to explore why this change occurred and

                                                                                                               5 Christine M. E. Guth, Alicia Volk and Emiko Yamanashi, Japan & Paris: Impressionism, Postimpressionism, and the Modern Era (Honolulu, HI: Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2004), 7. 6 Ibid., 16. 7 Ibid., 7.

  4  

how it impacted taste.

Another historical factor that contributed to Japan’s preference for Impressionist

and Post-Impressionist works of art is the change in its educational system. During the

period that Japan opened itself to the West, its educational system underwent major

reconstruction. Mori Arinori, the Minister of Education from 1886 to 1889, created new

educational regulations and modifications that encouraged education systems and

institutions to teach the arts and sciences that were necessary for the state to build a

powerful nation.8 If this was the case, how did the change in the educational system

impact Japan’s understanding and appreciation of Western art, more specifically

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, in the twentieth century? This chapter will

explore answers to questions such as these through analyzing contributing historical

factors and resulting inferences that can be made.

Another area to explore in Chapter 1 is the Western impact on modern Japanese

painting. Not only did Japanese artists feel they were a part of modernization by adopting

Western artistic methods, but they also felt they were remaining true to their roots since

Western modernist painting was heavily influenced by Japanese artistic traditions, such

as the flatness of the picture plane and the use of pure color and line. However, as artists

such as Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968) began to successfully merge East with West in

their work, members of Japanese society began to feel uneasy. Some felt that too many

Japanese artists submitted to European modernist painting and were losing sight of their

cultural heritage, therefore, a new movement to reclaim their national identity emerged,

                                                                                                               8 Christine Visita, "Japanese Cultural Transition: Meiji Architecture and the Effect of Cross-cultural Exchange with the West," The Forum: Cal Poly's Journal of History 1, no. 1 (2009): 38.  

  5  

also known as “neo- Japanism”. Contrary to the beginning of the Meiji Restoration,

where Westernized works of art by Japanese artists were celebrated, by the end of the

Taishō Period, the opposite attitude began to emerge and artists began to return to the

conventions of traditional Japanese painting of the Edo period (1603-1868), also known

as the ‘return to Japan.’9 As a result, many Western-style painters began to incorporate

East Asian artistic traditions into their work while continuing to use oil on canvas as their

medium as demonstrated by the work of Ryuzaburo Umehara (1888-1986), who was a

great admirer of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919).

Not only do historical factors contribute to Japanese collector’s preference for

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art but economic factors play a role as well. The

second chapter of this thesis will explore various contributing economic factors. Dr.

Takato Hiraki, one of the top finance researchers in the Asia-Pacific region, and her

colleagues investigate the role played by economic factors that were commonly believed

to contribute to the 1980s art market bubble. In their essay, Hiraki and her colleagues

explore how Japanese collector and dealer investments influenced international art prices.

Their findings suggest that the accelerated appreciation of land prices in Japan stimulated

Japanese investor demands for both international arts and Japanese stocks in their sample

period, especially, in the late 1980s.10 Japanese investments in paintings were often made

by large Japanese corporations or wealthy individuals directly or indirectly backed by

corporate assets.11 Furthermore, some financial experts contend that investors view art as

                                                                                                               9 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 51.  10 Takato Hiraki et al., “How Did Japanese Investments Influence International Art Prices?,” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 44, no. 6 (2009): 1490. 11 Ibid.

  6  

a positive complement to portfolios containing international equity securities.12 Though

some analysts attribute interest in buying major expensive works in the art market to

attempting to gain social and cultural capital, in other words a quest for status. However,

while the boom of the Japanese economy could be one reason why Western art became

an attractive asset to Japanese buyers, it does not explain why they had a much stronger

preference for well-known French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.

While economic factors may not explain Japanese collectors’ preference for

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, aesthetic factors, on the other hand, could be

more revealing. The third chapter of this thesis will explore various aesthetic factors that

fueled Japanese collectors’ desire for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Some

economists have argued that the art market does not follow the path of the stock

exchange and contend that, despite popular belief, no evidence is found that Japanese

buyers viewed art as a speculative vehicle instead of a more classic consumption good

that was related to their own cultural heritage.13 This statement brings several questions

to mind. How did Japanese collectors see it as related to their cultural heritage? Were

they keenly aware of the influence Japanese prints had on the European Impressionist

painters, otherwise known as Japonisme? What kind of Impressionist art did Japanese

collectors buy (e.g. nudes, still lifes, landscape)? For example, within the Impressionist

and Modern category, did they purchase the most individualized and least stylized work?

If Japanese collectors were not aware of Japonisme, perhaps other reasons could

                                                                                                               12 Jeff Donaldson et al., “Are Real Assets Priced Internationally? Evidence from the Art Market,” Multinational Finance Journal 2, no. 3 (1998): 167-187.  13 Fabian Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble on (Post) Impressionism.” Association for Cultural Economics International (ACEI), ACEI Working Paper Series, November 2011.

  7  

explain their interest in Impressionist and Modern art. Japan had an infatuation with

France from the late 1880s until the outbreak of World War II when Paris was the

acknowledged center of the artistic world. In their book, Japan & Paris: Impressionism,

Postimpressionism, and the Modern Era, Christine Guth and her colleagues argue that

European modernism influenced Japan's traditions mostly through Japanese collectors

rather than independent curiosity on the part of the painters, or contact with Western

painters. Perhaps Japanese collectors collected Western art due to its ‘Frenchness’ or its

perceived ‘brand’ value. In his book titled The Ultimate Trophy, Philip Hook points out

that the Japanese are great consumers of brands. In an interview, Michael Findlay, an

internationally renowned art dealer and Director of Acquavella Gallery in New York and

previous head of Impressionist and Modern Paintings at Christie’s, contends that it is not

uncommon for members of Japan’s society to be attracted to brands, which is hardly

unique to Japan. Findlay stated that higher society class members of Japan grew up

knowing that Renoir is equivalent to Rolex.14 If this is true, what other artists did

Japanese collectors perceive to be high quality ‘brands’? Would their social and cultural

status greatly increase if they purchased a Renoir, for example? In the same interview,

Michael Findlay contends that Japanese collectors bought Impressionist art for social

status when he said:

I genuinely believe that the majority of the buying done by the Japanese during their boom was consumer buying for personal prestige and because they could afford to do it - it was not investment oriented – they could afford it so they did it.15 Other contributing aesthetic factors that this thesis will explore are the activities

                                                                                                               14 Michael Findlay, (May 3, 2013), Personal Interview.  15 Michael Findlay, (May 3, 2013), Personal Interview.

  8  

of museums (such as the Museum of Western Art), galleries, and department stores in

Japan in the 1980s. Was there a flurry of Impressionist exhibits at the time? What were

auction houses doing? Were they specifically targeting Japanese collectors with their

marketing tactics? This thesis will attempt to address these questions.

This thesis will put all of the aforementioned pieces of the puzzle together in an

effort to better understand the Japanese rationale for buying Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist art in the 1980s and its resulting effects on the Impressionist and Modern

category of the art market. It will attempt to contextualize the correlations between each

contributing factor (historical, economic, and aesthetic) and their influence on Japanese

collectors’ choice of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art. This thesis will

conclude with an assessment of contributing factors to Japanese collector’s preference for

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works and will address what inferences can be

made as a result.

  9  

Chapter 1: Contributing Historical Factors

Japan’s interaction with the West began with the reign of the Meiji Emperor (r.

1868-1912) and his government, otherwise known as the Meiji Restoration. During this

time, Japan opened its borders to the West in an attempt to acquire knowledge that would

help them attain a more powerful position among Western countries. The education of

the Japanese in Western ways and the added interest in finding a way to become a world

power in the context of politics and economics affected Japan’s notions of national

identity. Further, Japan’s Westernization and desire to become a global leader also

impacted Japan’s status in the international realm, as well as other cultural and social

constructs found within Japan.16 Maintaining the spirit of their culture and tradition

within their personal daily living helped to preserve their identity as they explored

foreign styles during the Meiji period. This resulted in a hybrid society that adopted

Western styles of clothing, furniture, decoration, and architecture to keep up with

changing times while remaining true to the core of their traditional culture.17 The

Japanese were fascinated with Western society in much the same way Westerners were

intrigued by Japan’s culture and different artistic styles. Thus, Japan’s interest in

acquiring a greater understanding of Western culture may have influenced their

preference for Western art.

At the same time Japan was opening itself to the West, its educational system

underwent major reconstruction. Arinori Mori, the Minister of Education from 1886 to

                                                                                                               16 Christine M. Visita, "Japanese Cultural Transition: Meiji Architecture and the Effect of Cross-cultural Exchange with the West," The Forum: Cal Poly's Journal of History 1, no. 1, Article 7 (2009): 36. 17 Ibid., 44  

  10  

1889, created new regulations and reforms that encouraged education systems and

institutions to teach the arts and sciences that were necessary for the state to build a

powerful nation.18 Such concepts included Confucianism that would underscore tradition

by continuing to embrace characteristics of its ethical system by stressing love for

humanity, reverence for parents, and harmony in thought and conduct, for example, but at

the same time did not reject modernization of the state. A result of the changes in Japan’s

educational systems was a more defined distinction between social classes. For example,

as a result of their financial security and connections, the upper class often sent their

children abroad to benefit from the more prestigious educational institutions. The

improvement in the education of Japanese students led to more knowledgeable citizens

who could then move their nation forward and make it a stronger player on the global

front, which was a result that corresponded to the Meiji government's goal of becoming a

greater people by keeping up with modernization. Through the changes made in the

educational system, and the opportunities available to students to study abroad, the

incorporation of Western ideas helped forge a new Japanese identity.19

Not only did the Meiji government reform the educational systems, it also

amended Japan’s arts infrastructure in an effort to both preserve Japan’s national artistic

heritage and to also be able to participate as equal players in the international art world.

In order to accomplish this, the Meiji government implemented a framework for the arts

derived from Europe that complemented Japan’s political goals. Furthermore, the Meiji

government adopted a patronage system similar to the one France was famous for.20 This

                                                                                                               18 Ibid., 37-38. 19 Ibid., 50. 20 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 40.

  11  

Japanese version of the French salon system made it easier for artists who were educated

in Paris to advance in a society that was largely unfamiliar with Western styles of

painting. Once Japan’s gates opened to the West, Japanese artists took advantage of the

Meiji administration’s national agenda of modernization and flocked mainly to Paris to

study French paintings in what was then considered to be the center of the art world. By

the late nineteenth century, not only were artists from Japan moving to Paris, but artists

from the Americas, the rest of Europe, and other parts of Asia were flocking there as well

to study, create, and be a part of the environment that was filled with exhilarating

intellectual and aesthetic triumphs.21 Paris was the center of excitement for these

international artists who were looking to quench their thirst for new means of expression.

Furthermore, Paris’ emergence as the center of the art world in the late nineteenth century

coincided with a time when the traditions of modern art in Japan were being established,

which resulted in the development of a strong link between Paris and Japan from 1890 to

1930.22

This strong link between Japan and Paris was demonstrated by the incorporation

of Western ideas into Japanese culture and society, which was evident in works of art

created by Japanese artists as well as in French paintings collectors brought back to Japan

in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century and was an outgrowth of the Meiji

administration’s official policies during this time period.23 Consequently, European, and

especially French, painting had a huge impact on Japanese culture between 1890 and

                                                                                                               21 Thomas J. Rimer et al., Paris in Japan: The Japanese Encounter with European Painting (St. Louis, MO: Washington University Press, 1987), 33. 22 Ibid., 33.  23 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 7.

  12  

1930. Guth and her colleagues contend that Western modernist painting for Japanese

artists intrigued by modern European art has a dual significance:

At once offering a radical new conception of what art and the artist could be, while also reassuring Japanese artists of the legitimacy of their native artistic tradition and, by extension, of their own rightful place within the emerging tradition of modernism.24

Not only did Japanese artists feel they were a part of modernization by adopting Western

artistic methods, but they also felt they were remaining true to their roots since Western

modernist painting was heavily influenced by Japanese artistic traditions, such as the

flatness of the picture plane and the use of pure color and line. As more artists began to

create more Western influenced works of art, they began to establish a position for

themselves within Japanese society which led to the development of two parallel genres

of art in Japan, nihonga, or Japanese-style painting, and yōga, or Western-style painting

in oil and watercolor.25

Not only were formal techniques a concern for Japanese artists, but representation

of the inner self, such as inner movement, rhythm, life, and personality, was important as

well. 26 When the aspirations of Western art shifted from focusing on representation (the

precise figurative depiction of the natural world) to self-expression (based on the

individual’s personal perception of nature), Japanese artists recognized a connection

between modern European expressionism and traditional modes of art. This newfound

connection between Japanese artistic tradition and Western artistic modernism resulted in

the development of group named Shirakaba, or the White Birch Society. The Shirakaba

was a group of artists, writers, literary critics and the like who emphasized individualism

                                                                                                               24 Ibid., 42-43. 25 Ibid., 31.  26 Ibid., 45.

  13  

over naturalism. Members of Shirakaba interpreted European modernists, especially

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), Henri Matisse (1869-1954),

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), through traditionally

Japanese artistic ideals. 27 The group thought highly of Western aesthetics, especially

Post-Impressionism and Expressionism. They felt it was their duty to spread the ideas of

Western art and Western literature in Japan. Consequently, the Shirakaba group

published a monthly literary journal, which was in circulation from 1910 until 1923. The

literary magazine Shirakaba, as well as other literary journals, highlighted commentaries

on the writings of European critics as well as texts by artists, such as Paul Gauguin’s Noa

Noa, Vincent van Gogh’s Letters, and Henri Matisse’s Notes of a Painter.28 These

translations and commentaries were essential to the development of Japan’s

‘revolutionary artist.’ Not only did the Shirakaba group influence Japanese artists, but it

also influenced Japanese society’s reception of modern European art in the period before

World War II by emphasizing in their magazine the importance of the artist’s personality,

as opposed to the formal means employed by the artist.29

In an effort to fulfill the new mandate in Japanese taste for an individualistic

aesthetic, the Japanese modern artist’s challenge was to express the inner spiritual self’s

response to nature in physical form, which the viewer, consequently, would experience

emotionally through the rhythm of the artist’s composition rather than focus on the

work’s formal qualities or subject. This interpretation of European modernism among

Japanese artists was remarkably similar to the book would become the most influential

                                                                                                               27 Ibid., 45. 28 Ibid., 43. 29 Ibid., 45.  

  14  

foreign text on art at the beginning of the Taishō period (1912-1926), titled The Post

Impressionists (1911). The author of the book, Englishman, C. Lewis Hind, interpreted

Post-Impressionism as a spiritual movement that is portrayed through the emotive and

rhythmic strokes of the artist’s hand. Hind contends:

Expression, not beauty, is the aim of art. He who expresses his emotion rhythmically, decoratively, seeking the inner meaning of things, is artist. He who represents the mere externals is illustrator.30

An artist must express himself to be effective and expression must be derived from the

interior, not the exterior. To strengthen his case, Hind gives examples of works created

by artists he deemed to be the founders of Post-Impressionism, such as Cézanne, van

Gogh, and Gauguin.31 The book was so popular in Japan that one Japanese artist called it

“the key to French painting.”32 It is interesting to note that the frontispiece of Hind’s

book, The Post Impressionists, includes an illustration of Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers,

1888 (Figure 1.1), which was also the painting that set an auction record when the

Yasuda Fire and Marine Company of Tokyo purchased it during the 1980s bubble.

While books such as The Post Impressionists and literary journals such as the

Shirakaba influenced artists to embrace and admire Western modes of expressive

painting, many artists struggled with how they could incorporate the techniques they

learned through the literature and by going abroad into their works without losing sight of

their national heritage. During the Meiji period, one Japanese artist who was able to

successfully arrive at a ‘sweet spot’ in merging both Eastern and Western traditions in his

work was Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968). Despite his struggle with national identity,

                                                                                                               30 C. Lewis Hind, The Post Impressionists (London: Mehuen & Co. Ltd., 1911), 2. 31 Ibid., 3. 32 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 7.  

  15  

Foujita was lauded for his ability to successfully merge Eastern tradition with European

modernism into one painting as demonstrated by his painting Reclining Nude, 1922

(Figure 1.2). French critic Michel-Gabriel Vaucaire commended Foujita’s unique ability

to converge East with West when he said, “Few artists arrive at such an astonishing

situation: passing for a French painter in the eyes of the Japanese and for a pure Japanese

among Westerners.”33 Foujita’s unique style successfully blurs the line between

decorative and high art, East and West. If one compares Foujita’s Reclining Nude, with

French painter Edouard Manet’s (1832-1883) Olympia, 1863 (Figure 1.3), one can see

Foujita’s direct reference to the innovative work while at the same time incorporating

Eastern practice through his use of black contouring reminiscent of ukiyo-e prints as well

as through his brushwork that is evocative of modern nihonga paintings, made even more

unique through the application of his signature porcelain-like ground, a recipe he never

revealed, to represent the skin of his creamy nude models.34 Foujita had the greatest and

most lasting success of all of the Japanese artists studying in Paris due to his signature

style as well as his commitment to both European modernism and traditional Japanese

modes of painting. Guth and her colleagues contend:

In both material and technique, Foujita’s assertively planar paintings were unique to his own individual enterprise while also clearly alluding to the Japanese tradition. They thereby satisfied the double standard of originality European critics imposed on Japanese Western-style artists.35

While Foujita succeeded in fulfilling the European critics’ requirements with his

signature style of Eastern tradition meeting Western modernism, this merging of the two

styles made some members of Japanese society uneasy. Some felt that too many

                                                                                                               33 Ibid., 7. 34 Ibid., 48. 35 Ibid.

  16  

Japanese artists submitted to European modernist painting and were losing sight of their

cultural heritage, therefore, a new movement to reclaim their national identity emerged,

also known as “neo- Japanism”. Contrary to the beginning of the Meiji Restoration,

where Westernized works of art by Japanese artists were celebrated, by the end of the

Taishō Period, the opposite attitude began to emerge and artists began to return to the

conventions of traditional Japanese painting of the Edo period (1603-1868).36 As a result,

many Western-style painters began to incorporate East Asian artistic traditions into their

work while continuing to use oil on canvas as their medium as demonstrated by the work

of Ryuzaburo Umehara (1888-1986), who was a great admirer of Pierre-Auguste Renoir

(1841-1919). In his Nude and Fans, 1938 (Figure 1.4), Umehara demonstrates the

‘return to Japan’ by incorporating the rich colors and muscular contour lines he

discovered in the Momoyama period (1568-1603) screen paintings and the Edo period

Rimpa paintings into his already colorful, Renoir-like style, which resulted in brightly

colored landscapes and nudes in oils.37

Not only were Japanese artists responsible for introducing Japan to innovative

Western techniques of painting, but they also played an integral part in developing

collections instrumental to the evolution of Japan’s aesthetic taste. Many Japanese

collectors acquired works of art with the help of Japanese artists living in Europe while

others bought paintings with established reputations and name recognition. Collectors’

desire for works with name recognition was deeply rooted in Japan’s cultures of

collecting and dates back to the tea ceremony enthusiasts in which there was a fetishistic

                                                                                                               36 Ibid., 51.  37 Ibid., 52.

  17  

approach to legendary paintings and tea wares that had once belonged to Japan’s feudal

military rulers or that had the ‘stamp of approval’ of discriminating collectors.38

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the hierarchy of power shifted

from being those who were born into powerful families to those who had accumulated

wealth. Japan’s leading collectors during this time period, similar to their European and

American contemporaries, were mainly involved with new businesses such as

international manufacturing and trade, finance, shipping, and railroads. 39 Some of these

pivotal Japanese collectors of modern European art were Kōjirō Matsukata (1865-1950),

Tadamasa Hayashi (1853-1906), Magosaburō Ōhara (1880-1943), and Shōjirō Ishibashi

(1889-1976).40 As the newest thing, European painting offered these new wealthy

international business leaders an emblem of their status in society. Many collectors

acquired avant-garde European paintings as a way to proclaim both their, and Japan’s,

position in the global economy.41

European art gradually made its way into Japan as a result of these new Japanese

business leaders’ desire to collect. Most notably, in the mid-to-late 1920s, European art

poured into Japan at record levels mainly due to Kōjirō Matsukata’s growing collection.

Between 1918 and 1921, Matsukata purchased many French paintings from Paul Durand-

Ruel (1831-1922), a famous Paris dealer who was close to Pissarro, Manet, Monet, and

other impressionist painters.42 Durand-Ruel was a visionary, ideological dealer who

single-handedly created the market for the Impressionists through years of tireless effort

                                                                                                               38 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 17. 39 Ibid., 14. 40 Ibid., 7. 41 Ibid., 16.  42 Ibid., 70.

  18  

and unwavering faith in the artists’ talent despite being met with rampant negative critical

reviews, public scorn, and financial ruin. Impressionist painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir

speaks to Durand-Ruel’s impact on the livelihood of the Impressionists when he confides

to his son, “Without him, we would never have survived.”43 Not only did he give the

Impressionists monetary support but Durand-Ruel also gave them the confidence to

pursue their work by building their reputation. The Paris dealer redefined what it meant

to be a modern dealer and set the standard for developing the market for the

Impressionists by recognizing the importance of creating the market on a global level and

by implementing various strategic marketing tactics.

Matsukata recognized Durand-Ruel’s great capacity as a dealer and, therefore,

entrusted him with a substantial amount of money to purchase works at his discretion

and, consequently, Matsukata obtained an astounding number of canvases by artists

including Cézanne, Rouault, Gauguin, and Renoir.44 Originally, Matsukata was planning

to build a museum to house his collection, however, when World War II broke out, his

collection, most of which he kept in France due to high import taxes, was seized as

enemy property.45 In 1954, the French government returned about three hundred

paintings and sculptures as a gesture of goodwill with the understanding that the works of

art would create the foundation of a national museum of Western art.46 Although it

happened much later than he had envisioned, Matsukata’s dream became a reality when

the National Museum of Western Art opened in Tokyo in 1957. His works of art

                                                                                                               43 Pierre Assouline, Discovering Impressionism: The Life of Paul Durand-Ruel (New York: The Vendome Press, 1987), 23. 44 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 70. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid.  

  19  

exhibited at the museum played a pivotal role in educating members of Japan’s society

about Western art.

Not only were the artists and collectors pivotal in bringing Western art into Japan,

but Japanese dealers, such as Tadamasa Hayashi, played an integral role as well. Hayashi

lived in Paris off and on between 1878 and his death in 1906. Not only was Hayashi

Japan’s leading dealer in Japanese art during the peak of the trend for all things Japanese,

but he was also the first Japanese to form a collection of European oil paintings, pastels,

and prints.47 He collected works by painters such as Jacques-Émile Blanche (1861-

1942), in addition to works by the better known Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Gauguin, and

Degas.48 Hayashi obtained many of these directly from the artists in exchange for ukiyo-

e prints.49 While modernist paintings, such as these Impressionist paintings, did not yet

enjoy the meibutsu (treasured) status they now have in Japan, the collections formed in

the 1920s and 1930s by Hayashi and Matsukata became sought after works since their

names were guarantees of authenticity and value.50

Matsukata’s collection was unveiled to the public in a watershed 1928 exhibition

at Tokyo’s first and new art museum, the National Museum of Western Art.51 By the

time the museum opened, Japan’s society had learned a sophisticated understanding of

modern European art. In large part, this was due to the dedicated efforts of several

generations of Japanese artists who painted in oils on canvas. However, many other

factors affected Japan’s aesthetic taste during the Meiji and Taishō periods as well, such

                                                                                                               47 Ibid., 17. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid., 39.  

  20  

as literary journals, books, dealers, and collectors such as Matsukata whose exhibitions of

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works would forever impact Japan’s artistic taste.

  21  

Chapter 2: Contributing Economic Factors

Not only were collectors instrumental in bringing Western art to Japan during the

Meiji Restoration, but they were also instrumental to the hefty purchases of Impressionist

and Post-Impressionist art works during the 1980s bubble. Many economists argue that

Japanese collectors purchased Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works for investment

purposes while others contend that it was more of a luxury consumption good often

purchased as an effort to reclaim their cultural heritage, which had influenced the work of

French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. Furthermore, many economists also

noted that Japanese collectors often bought second tier works of art for extraordinary

prices during the 1980s bubble. In an effort to understand potential contributing

economic factors, an examination is warranted to understand what happened in Japan that

enabled the once practically nonexistent collectors into the auction house to bid and buy

works at what was considered by Westerners to be astronomical prices, thereby creating

the infamous art market bubble of the 1980s.

In order to understand how Japanese collectors affected the art market in the

1980s, it is necessary to understand what constitutes a ‘bubble.’ The bubble refers to

buying and selling in large volumes at prices that are considerably higher than the actual

value.52 Purchases are often made due to buyer speculation that the return will be positive

when the buyer resells. Once the buyer has earned a positive return, other buyers follow

suit resulting in a positive market sentiment, which consequently fuels the bubble. The

bubble continues to swell due to the attractiveness of the initial inflation and the buyers’

                                                                                                               52 V. Lei, C. Noussair, and C. Plott, “Nonspeculative Bubbles in Experimental Asset Markets: Lack of Common Knowledge,” Econometrica, 69, no. 4 (July 2001): 831.

  22  

confidence that they will make a profit.53 This behavior continues as long as there is

demand for reselling the asset, otherwise, it leads to the burst or collapse of the bubble.54

One instance of this type of bubble behavior was observed in the art market from about

1986 to 1991, which was made more intense by strong Japanese buying, mostly in the

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist categories. (Chart 2.1) There are many speculations

as to why Japanese buyers chose to spend their money in the art market, more specifically

in the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist categories.

As mentioned in the Introduction, one potential reason that economists often cite

for strong Japanese collector presence at auction is that the Japanese economy was

experiencing a dramatic increase in their property prices in the stock market, otherwise

known as the Japanese asset price bubble, from 1986 to 1991.55 This resulted in Japanese

citizens being able to get large loans from banks through inflated real-estate values as

collateral. During the post war period, Japan’s economic growth rate grew at an average

of 8% per annum from the 1960s to 1980s, which was one of the highest in the world.56

Furthermore, Japan had a large stock of savings, major trade surpluses, and a yen whose

value continued to significantly increase against the dollar (Chart 2.2), which was a result

of policies pursued by the government during the 1970s.57 Two other reasons for the

dramatic increase of the value of the yen against the dollar was the post-Plaza Agreement

                                                                                                               53 B. Roehner and D. Sornette, “Analysis of the phenomenon of speculative trading in one of its basic manifestations: postage stamp bubbles,” International Journal of Modern Physics C, 10, no. 6 (June 1999): 1103. 54 Ibid., 5. 55 Clare McAndrew, The International Art Market in 2011. Observations on the Art Trade over 25 Years (Helvoirt, The Netherlands: The European Fine Art Foundation, 2012), 84. 56 Ibid., 84. 57 Ibid., 84.  

  23  

of 1985 and the Baker/Miyazawa Agreement of 1986, however, both agreements failed to

decrease the high levels of Japanese exports.58 Consequently, Japan was overflowing

with money that was invested in real estate and stocks – mainly abroad. With this  

buildup of wealth from real estate and stocks and a dominating yen to buy art sold in the

U.S. and European markets whose currencies were weaker, the Japanese were able to buy

paintings at a relatively cheaper rate versus their U.S. competitors buying with a weak

dollar during the 1980s. As the value of the yen increased while the value of the dollar

decreased, Japanese collectors obtained many works of art, mainly in the well-known

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist categories.59 (Chart 2.1)

Oftentimes, Japanese collectors used the art they purchased as collateral to attain

loans. Banks loaned up to half of a painting’s value as a way to attract additional high

net-worth customers. For example, companies such as the Osaka-based Itoman

Corporation acquired loans from banks like Sumitomo by using its art collection, then

valued at $521 million, as collateral.60 As art prices dramatically increased and returns

and dividends on the stock markets began to decrease, speculators added fuel to a market

that was already becoming overheated by art investment. In addition to Japanese

collectors, other global investors were looking for other ways to invest their money

following ‘Black Monday’ on October 1987, which was the major stock market collapse

when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 23%.61 This, in addition to lack of

regulation in the financial sector, led to aggressive speculation, especially in the Tokyo

                                                                                                               58 Iain Robertson, Understanding International Art Markets and Management (New York: Routledge, 2005), 59. 59 McAndrew, The International Art Market in 2011, 84. 60 Robertson, Understanding International Art Markets and Management, 59.  61 McAndrew, The International Art Market in 2011, 87.  

  24  

Stock Exchange as well as the property market, both of which reached historical high

points near the end of 1989.62

As a consequence of Japan’s asset price bubble as well as U.S. speculators

looking to diversify their portfolios, the international art market entered a boom period

from about 1987. By the end of 1990, the world’s three most expensive paintings ever

sold at auction were purchased by Japanese investors. Furthermore, most of the Japanese

investments in paintings were made by large Japanese corporations or wealthy

individuals directly or indirectly financed by corporate assets.63 For example, in 1987,

Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance bought van Gogh’s Sunflowers, 1888, for $39.9

million and the news made headlines around the world. Subsequently, in 1988,

Mitsukoshi Department Store purchased Pablo Picasso’s Acrobat and Young Harlequin,

1905, for $37.6 million. Next, in 1989, Nippon Autopolis, a motorsport racing circuit in

Japan, paid an astounding $52 million for Picasso’s Les Noces de Pierrette, 1905.

Finally, at the height of the boom in 1990, the series of previous auction records was

broken by the astonishing purchases of van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 1890, which

was sold for a record $82.5 million at Christie’s in New York, as well as Renoir’s Le

Moulin de la Galette, 1876, which was sold for a world-record $78.1 million.

Unsurprisingly, an individual backed by corporate assets purchased these two paintings,

namely Ryohei Saito, chairman of Japan’s Daishowa Paper Manufacturing.64 As a result

of the strong Japanese investor presence in the auction houses, from 1987 to 1990

                                                                                                               62 Ibid., 84. 63 Hiraki et al., “How Did Japanese Investments Influence International Art Prices?,” 1489.  64 Clare McAndrew, Emerging Economies and the Art Trade in 2008: Globalisation and the Art Market (Helvoirt, The Netherlands: The European Fine Art Foundation, 2009), 12.

  25  

Japanese collectors had purchased about one-third of all the nineteenth-century,

Impressionist and modern art in the market, as well as a significant number of Old Master

paintings.65 (Chart 2.1) Due to surplus cash and loans handed out by banks using inflated

real-estate values as collateral, Japanese collectors purchased works of art with a lack of

discrimination and minimal negotiation, which caused values for certain types of work,

oftentimes considered mediocre works of art, to double annually.66

By 1990, the art market had reached a high of over $27 billion and experts in the

art world began to fear that a demand-induced bubble had formed.67 The experts’

instincts proved to be correct. There was a sharp increase in the interest rates by the

Bank of Japan at the end of 1989 and again in August 1990.68 Consequently, Japan

experienced the largest ever crash in its stock market, which resulted in a debt crisis, a

crisis in the banking sector, as well as the burst of the asset bubble in 1991 in Japan.69

During the boom, golf club memberships, real estate, and art had been some of the most

frequently traded assets. Furthermore, banks had backed dealers such as the Gallery

Urban and the Aoyama Gallery, with the belief that their art assets would continue to sell

indefinitely, and at higher prices.70 As a result of the crash of Japan’s economy in 1991,

many speculative collectors were forced to go into bankruptcy, mainly due to a collapse

of liquidity caused by unrelated investments, and many galleries were forced to close.71

This resulted in the art buyers, investors, and dealers dropping out overnight, which

                                                                                                               65 Michael Findlay, The Value of Art (New York: Prestel Publishing, 2012), 161. 66 Ibid., 161.  67 McAndrew, The International Art Market in 2011, 84-85.  68 Robertson, Understanding International Art Markets and Management, 59. 69 McAndrew, The International Art Market in 2011, 87.  70 Robertson, Understanding International Art Markets and Management, 59. 71 McAndrew, Emerging Economies and the Art Trade in 2008,12.

  26  

subsequently ended the art boom. 72 Even today, many collections that were used as

collateral against corporate loans still remain in bank vaults.73 For example, Picasso’s

masterpiece titled Les Noces de Pierette, 1905, epitomizes the sad destiny of paintings

purchased during the bubble-era. The painting did not emerge from bank vaults for over

a decade due to its ownership constantly being transferred from one creditor to another.74  

The crisis in Japan, resulted in more than a decade of stagnation and deflation, and is

often referred to as Japan’s “lost decade.”75 The Japanese have not returned to the art

market as significant buyers since then.

While the increase in wealth was probably the major reason for the sudden entry

of many Japanese buyers into the art market in the late 1980s, the role played by currency

exchange rates should not be discounted. From a currency exchange rate perspective,

works of art in the Impressionist and Modern art market that were sold in New York were

increasingly cheaper for Japanese buyers during the boom period than for U.S. buyers.76

(Chart 2.2) This difference in exchange rates has made economists question whether,

from a Japanese perspective, a bubble ever really existed.

As previously discussed, the increased value of the yen, the weak dollar, and the

inflated asset prices in Japan’s market were some of the main drivers fueling the art

market bubble. The currency difference between the yen and the dollar is important in

explaining the alleged art market ‘bubble.’    In their essay, Bocart and his colleagues

analyze the 1980s price bubble on Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art using the Log

                                                                                                               72 Findlay, The Value of Art, 161. 73 McAndrew, Emerging Economies and the Art Trade in 2008, 12. 74 Yoko Shibata, “The Art of a Failed Economy,” Japan Inc., December 1999, www.japaninc.com/article.php?articleID=211 (accessed August 22, 2013). 75 McAndrew, The International Art Market in 2011, 87. 76 Ibid., 89.

  27  

Periodic Power Law. The authors argue that it is shown formally that there was a bubble

in this market between 1986 and 1989.77 However, the authors also contend that when

they denominate the art price index in Japanese yen (JPY) rather than in U.S. dollars

(USD), no price bubble behavior was found at all from a Japanese perspective.78 The

exchange rate trended in favor of the Japanese yen from about 300 JPY/USD in 1975 to

100 JPY/USD in 1995.79 (Chart 2.3) Further, art prices in Japanese currency were not

especially high during the period from 1986 to 1990.80 (Chart 2.4) From its lowest level

in 1984, to its peak in 1989, the value of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art

increased by 231% for the yen currency.81 While this increase seems significant, it pales

in comparison to the 472% increase for American investors during the same period.82

Moreover, art prices were more than three times as expensive in 1989 than they were in

1975 for the USD currency, while the JPY currency had a relatively small 50% increase

in art prices between 1975 and 1989.83 The authors assert that this observation suggests

that Japanese buyers never felt that they were riding a bubble.84 Thus, contrary to the

popular assumption that the Japanese were acting irrationally in the art market, it could

have been the case that their buying behavior was, rather rational since the price level at

which they were buying was not historically high, once the USD/JPY exchange rate is

taken into account.85 (Chart 2.4) Furthermore, the Japanese were actually consuming art

                                                                                                               77 Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble,” 15. 78 Ibid., 16. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid., 17. 81 Ibid., 16. 82 Ibid. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid, 17. 85 Ibid.  

  28  

at prices that were relatively reasonable at Japanese yen levels and purchasing art in a

bullish market, whereas U.S. investors were buying art at high U.S. dollar prices in an

attempt to take advantage of actual speculative opportunities hoping to resell to the so-

called “irrational” Japanese.86 In other words, Japanese buyers were unaware of the

developing bubble, whereas the art market speculators intentionally fueled the bubble.  

Whether the Japanese perceived there to be a bubble or not, the fact remains that

the art market itself did experience a bubble during the boom of the late 1980s, which

indicates that there is a link between the art market and the wider economy. This link is

demonstrated by the correlation between the increase in Japan’s asset prices and the value

of the Japanese yen from 1986 to 1991 and the corresponding increase in the performance

of the art market during the same time period. (Chart 2.1) Economists often argue about

whether purchases made by Japanese buyers during the period of the bubble were for

investment purposes. It is acknowledged that during this period, art was promoted as a

way to circumvent widespread and mounting inflation, and consequently enticed a

growing number of clients.87 However, was this an enticement that resonated with

Japanese buyers?

In their article titled “Are real assets priced Internationally? Evidence from the

Art Market,” Kenneth Wieand and his colleagues investigate the relationships between

the U.S. and Japanese stock market indices and the prices of Impressionist and Modern

paintings sold at auction in New York by Christie’s and Sotheby’s.88 In their article, they

find no evidence that relates the S&P 500 stock returns to short-run art returns in the

                                                                                                               86 McAndrew, The International Art Market in 2011, 90. 87 Ibid., 82.  88 Kenneth Wieand et al., “Are Real Assets Priced Internationally? Evidence from the Art Market,” Multinational Finance Journal 2, no. 3 (1998): 167.

  29  

sample period, however, they do find that there is evidence that art-log returns are

positively related to the Tokyo Stock Price Index. They, thereby, conclude that during

the last half of the 1980s, there is a causal relationship from Japanese equities to art

prices.89 Consequently, Wieband and his colleagues contend that when Japanese security

prices were up and the yen’s currency exchange rate was high, the resulting relatively

low cost of art made Western art an appealing asset to Japanese investors.90 Similarly,

when Japanese equities declined, reflecting the country’s banking crisis, art prices that

Japanese buyers were willing to pay subsequently followed suit and lasted through the

end of the sample period (May 1977- May 1995).91 Therefore, this evidence supports the

hypothesis that investors view art as a positive complement to portfolios that are

comprised of international equity securities. Art economists Jianping Mei and Michael

Moses demonstrate a similar conclusion in 2002 by investigating the issue using their art

index when they declare, “A diversified portfolio of artworks may play a somewhat more

important role in portfolio diversification.”92 In other words, it could be wise for

investors to purchase art as a way to diversify their portfolio. Similarly, Rachel

Campbell, assistant professor of finance at Maastricht University, makes a comparable

conclusion when she states that the results of her investigations of empirical returns over

the 25 year period of January 1980 to February 2006 indicate that holding art as part of

an investment strategy offers diversification benefits due to its low correlation with other

                                                                                                               89 Ibid., 182. 90 Ibid., 184. 91 Ibid., 185. 92 Jianping Mei and Michael Moses, “Art as an Investment and the Underperformance of Masterpieces,” The American Economic Review 92, no. 5 (December 2002): 1666.  

  30  

asset classes. Therefore, Campbell concludes, art could be an attractive, although small

addition, to investors’ portfolios.93  

Conversely, not all art market analysts would agree with Campbell’s and her

colleagues’ conclusions. Other art market analysts contend that art is not viewed as part

of an investment strategy, rather it serves the purpose of a more classic, luxury

consumption good. For example, as mentioned in the Introduction, Bocart and his

colleagues declare that despite popular beliefs, no evidence is found that Japanese buyers

viewed art as a speculative vehicle instead of a more classic consumption good that was

related to their own cultural heritage.94 Furthermore, though an art investor might believe

that holding a ‘collectible’ asset provides a hedge against the fluctuations of the stock

market, the opposite seems to be the case. A risk-averse buyer normally would not find

art to be an attractive purchase for investment purposes alone due to the risk and return

characteristics of a painting portfolio.95 Similarly, Christophe Spaenjers, assistant

professor of finance at HEC (Hautes Études Commerciales) Paris, finds in his analysis

that that there is a strong and steady correlation between stock returns and the demand for

art and contends that in contrast to previous art investment analysis conclusions, art, he

asserts, is primarily an important luxury consumption good.96  Accordingly, during the

1980s and 1990s, very few collectors or anyone in the art world talked about art as an

                                                                                                               93 Rachel A.J. Campbell, “Art as an Alternative Investment,” Journal of Alternative Investments 10, no. 4 (Spring 2008): 79. 94 Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble,” 20. 95 William Goetzmann, “Accounting for Taste: Art and the Financial Markets Over Three Centuries,” The American Economic Review 83, no. 5 (December 1993): 1370. 96 Christophe Spaenjers, “Returns and Fundamentals in International Art Markets.” Department of Finance, Tilburg University, Job Market Paper, November 2010, 2.

  31  

investment.97 Moreover, it was not until around 2002 to 2005 that considering art as an

investment became a consideration.98  

In conclusion, while some art market analysts contend that Japanese collectors

purchased art for investment reasons and others argue they purchased it purely as a

consumption good, the fact remains that they still chose to use their newfound wealth to

buy art and, above all, were intentional in the genre they selected, namely Impressionist

and Post-Impressionist works. It may not be a coincidence that astonishing prices

attained at auction for paintings such as Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, 1888, happened during

an unprecedented decade for global stock investment.99 William Goetzmann, who is a

finance professor at Yale, a researcher, and an author contends, “Wealth, however, is not

the sole ingredient in the demand for art; another is taste.”100 It is the taste of Japanese

collectors that the next chapter will aim to explore in an effort to understand their

preference for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art.

                                                                                                               97 McAndrew, The International Art Market in 2011, 121. 98 Ibid., 121. 99 Goetzmann, “Accounting for Taste,” 1375. 100 Ibid., 1375.  

  32  

Chapter 3: Influences on Aesthetic Preferences

A third and final incentive that could have influenced Japanese buyers’ choice of

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art could be a combination of aesthetic factors.

Even though people are aware of the lower returns art investment offers versus the stock

market, they still choose to invest in art for several reasons. One reason is they

experience a “psychic benefit” from looking at the works of art, in other words they gain

an aesthetic return.101 The 1980s boom was driven predominantly by Impressionist and

Post-Impressionist figurative painting as seen in the compilation of art purchased by

Japanese buyers during the boom period. (Appendix I) This chapter will address potential

reasons Japanese buyers had a strong interest in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art,

masterpiece or not, specifically during the late 1980s. In order to understand why

Japanese collectors essentially created a tsunami in the art market for this art sector, it is

necessary to not only understand historical and economic factors, but it is also necessary

to understand what was going on in Japan’s art world during the boom period. There are

several influences on aesthetic factors that this chapter will discuss, which are the

influence of symbolic capital (or the quest for social status), taste, cultural heritage

reclamation, speculation regarding Japanese buyers’ choice of second tier art, museum

and gallery exhibits, and marketing activities implemented by art world players such as

the auction houses.  

                                                                                                               101 B.S. Frey and W.W. Pommerehne, “Art Investment: An Empirical Inquiry,” Southern Economic Journal 56, no. 2 (October 1989): 406.

  33  

In his book, The Art of the Deal, Noah Horowitz, who is an art historian and

expert on the international art market, discusses Pierre Bourdieu’s definition of “symbolic

capital.” Horowitz summarizes Bourdieu’s definition:

While some art market players may see art only as a means of financial enrichment, Bourdieu also accounts for those willing, for the sake of reputation or status building, to forgo profits for the accrual of long-term symbolic and economic dividends.102

Horowitz explains that for some art collectors, not only do they purchase it for financial

enrichment but they are also driven by non-financial incentives. In other words, some

buyers sacrifice profits in order to gain a higher social status, build their reputation, and

accrue economic dividends in the long-term. Similarly, the newly wealthy businessmen

of the twentieth-century had a strong desire to be seen as art collectors due to the fact that

Japan’s history had promoted art collecting as a pastime that belonged to men of social

status and leisure in Japan. 103 Furthermore, owning and displaying works of art that

implied a refined taste and status was a way these businessmen could demonstrate their

sense of personal and professional power.104

As a way to secure being viewed by society as part of the social elite, it was not

uncommon for Japanese buyers to seek out works that had name recognition. As

discussed in Chapter 1, name recognition was deeply ingrained in the Japanese culture of

collecting and dates back to the traditions of the tea ceremony.105 However, contrary to

when the hierarchy of power was based on heredity, which fostered a taste for traditional

Japanese art; the self-made newly wealthy collectors of the late nineteenth and early

                                                                                                               102 Noah Horowitz, Art of the Deal: Contemporary Art in a Global Financial Market (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 22. 103 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 15. 104 Ibid., 15. 105 Ibid., 17.  

  34  

twentieth centuries preferred Western art to demonstrate their knowledge of international

cultures, which subsequently elevated their status as a wealthy business leader.

Furthermore, Japanese businessmen, such as department store tycoons and bankers,

began to see modern works in the offices of their clients, which compelled them to

purchase similar collections with recognizable names as a way to demonstrate that they

share “cultural capital.”106 Professor and author Dr. Rosanne Martorella acknowledges

this when she quotes a dealer’s sentiments:

The paintings are symbols of prestige…When Japanese businessmen visit an American company, they see the American president’s office, and they say that they have the money, and that they should buy the work of a famous artist, too. They want to be international.107

Not unlike their American colleagues, the display of a Renoir, for example, would

guarantee increased publicity for Japanese businessmen and would elevate their status on

the global business front. In the 1980s, van Gogh’s Sunflowers, 1888, as well as other

worldwide icons of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism that were purchased by

Japanese buyers are classic examples of the attempts by the nouveaux riches, those made

wealthy by Japan’s bustling economy in the 1980s, to gain publicity, increase personal

prestige, and announce their status as international business leaders. Furthermore, not

only did acquiring avant-garde European art build collectors’ social status, but it was also

part of a strategy to proclaim Japan’s place in the global economy.108

The development of Japan’s taste for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works

of art can be traced back to when Japan was on its way to becoming a modern world

                                                                                                               106 Rosanne Martorella, Art and Business: An International Perspective on Sponsorship (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1996), 206. 107 Ibid. 108 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 16.  

  35  

power. From 1890 until about 1930, when the traditions of modern Japanese art were

being established, Paris and Japan enjoyed an intriguing relationship.109 During this time,

Japan’s artists moved to France to study and be at the center of artistic excitement and

innovation. Furthermore, the upper class modeled themselves on the tastes of Europeans

and French culture became the archetype of modern culture.110 The relationship formed

between the two countries was almost intuitive since European styles that Japanese

collectors preferred demonstrate the influence of Japanese art that was imported into

France, such as woodblock prints and Japanese objets d’art. There was a natural

similarity of taste between the two cultures demonstrated by the way each borrowed from

the other during different phases of their respective artistic development.111 It is also

probable that Cubism and other future developments in art were less inherently appealing

due to the traditional Japanese love of design, color, and pattern.112 Thus, it is not

surprising that purchases during the 1980s favor Impressionist and Post-Impressionist

works such as landscape and figurative works of art. (Appendix I) According to some

reports, the Japanese purchased about 40 percent of all of the Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist works bought at the time. From 1962 to 1971 nearly 900,000 works of art

were imported into Japan and in 1980 alone, Japanese buyers spent an estimated $750

million on Japanese works as well as another $250 million for imports.113 It was not until

the late 1980s that the Japanese became significant buyers in the global art market. For

                                                                                                               109 Thomas J. Rimer and Takashina Shuji with Gerald D.Bolas, Paris in Japan: The Japanese Encounter with European Painting (St. Louis, MO: Washington University Press, 1987), 33. 110 Martorella, Art and Business, 205. 111 Rimer et al., Paris in Japan, 78. 112 Ibid. 113 Martorella, Art and Business, 205.

  36  

example, in 1986, the value of imported arts rose to ¥70 billion and in 1990, the value

increased to an astounding ¥614 billion.114

While taste could be one reason why Japanese buyers chose Impressionist and

Post-Impressionist art, some art world analysts attribute their preference in genre as a

way to reclaim their cultural heritage. As stated in the Introduction, contrary to the

widespread belief that Japanese buyers purchased art for investment, no evidence is

found that supports this belief and they purchased it, instead, as more of a classic

consumption good that was related to their own cultural heritage.115 As previously

discussed, there are historical links between Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works

of art and it is well known that Western art, particularly in France, was influenced by

Japanese art during the mid- to late-1800s which resulted in an artistic movement referred

to as ‘Japonisme.’ Japonisme was a new style of painting that differed from Western

academic techniques in various ways, such as the off-centered arrangements and the

flatness of the picture plane. The movement was embraced by numerous Impressionist

and Post-Impressionist artists including Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec,

Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, and Edouard Manet. From this perspective, Japanese

buyers’ affinity for European painting was an effort to obtain a part of Japanese history.

Paintings from the Japonisme movement were emblematic of Japan’s early international

influence on the modern world and therefore encompassed that history. Thus, Japanese

buyers did not view these works of art as a speculative vehicle, but instead viewed them

                                                                                                               114 Ibid. 115 Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble,” 1.  

  37  

as consumption goods that represented the vital role Japan’s cultural heritage played in

the development of modern art.116

Perhaps it is this desire to acquire parts of their culture’s history that drove

Japanese collectors to pay huge sums of money for second-rate art. It is often baffling to

Westerners as to why Japanese collectors paid astronomical figures for art that was

considered by many art experts to be mediocre. Michael Findlay comments on the

second tier works of art Japanese collectors purchased and their resulting influence on

prices when he states:

Fueled by loans against inflated real-estate values, they bought the good, the bad, and the indifferent with little or no negotiation and, with help from fellow travelers across the globe, values for certain kinds of work doubled annually.117

Findlay acknowledges that Japanese collectors purchased Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist works with practically no regard for quality or price. Japanese investors

purchased paintings without training, experience, and often had little prior exposure to

Western pictures.118 Furthermore, they frequently ignored issues such as the provenance

and the condition of the work, which can often have a significant effect on price. In other

words, Japanese buyers did not always purchase the most stylized and important

paintings, rather they often bought meager works that were often considered to be

mediocre by the artist’s standards, such as such as sketches and studies, and they

overpaid for them to boot. For example, in Picasso’s The Mirror, 1932 (Figure 3.1 and

Appendix I), the artist depicts a nude in front of a mirror using a circular motif similar to

                                                                                                               116 Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble,” 19-20. 117 Findlay, The Value of Art, 161. 118 Cynthia Saltzman, Portrait of Dr. Gachet: The Story of a van Gogh Masterpiece: Modernism, Money, Politics, Collectors, Dealers, Taste, Greed, and Loss (New York: Viking Penguin, 1998), 282.  

  38  

that of Matisse’s Apples, 1916 (Figure 3.2). This painting is thought to be one of several

that Picasso used to study the depth of psychological complexity possible within a

decorative style, which enabled him to complete his greatest painting of the period

entitled Girl Before a Mirror, 1932 (Figure 3.3).119 Even though Picasso used The Mirror

as a study for his final masterpiece Girl Before a Mirror, it did not deter Japanese buyer

Shigeki Kameyama from paying the astounding price of $26.4 million the work. It is

likely that the driving force behind Kameyama’s decision to purchase The Mirror was

that Picasso was a famous ‘brand’ and not whether it was a masterpiece within the artist’s

portfolio. Japanese buyers overpaid for mediocre works such as The Mirror so frequently

that it appeared as though a new aesthetic was emerging rather than pure carelessness on

the part of the buyer.120 Moreover, dealers seldom knew who the collectors were in Japan

since they often interacted with a series of middlemen instead, who each took part of the

commission.121

There are several historic and economic reasons that could have fueled Japanese

buyers’ lack of discrimination for whether they bought a masterpiece or chose an

unimportant work instead. From a Japanese historic point of view, collecting art had not

been about whether it was a masterpiece of the artist, the quality, or condition; it was,

instead, more about what resonated with the buyer. For example, while many Japanese

businessmen had travelled abroad in the early 1900s, they did not have a strong hold on

                                                                                                               119 Anne Baldassari et al., Matisse Picasso (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002), 233. 120 Peter Watson, From Manet to Manhattan: The Rise of the Modern Art Market (New York: Random House Publishing, 1992), 453. 121 Saltzman, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 282.

  39  

the cultures that created the paintings since they were unable to speak the language and

their time and experience there was limited. Guth contends:

They were little influenced by European hierarchies of artistic genres or by traditional canons of taste. Religious, historical, and allegorical painting in the spirit of the Renaissance held little allure.122

In other words, these early 20th century Japanese modern-day businessmen were not

interested in, nor were they aware of, how Europeans ranked various artistic styles.

Instead, these businessmen preferred “paintings of modern life,” such as views of Paris,

which could evoke memories of places they visited, or charming views of the French

countryside.123 More specifically, they preferred works of art that were easy to

understand and gave them instant gratification as they viewed it. This same preference for

uncomplicated works of art continued with Japanese buyers during the 1980s boom, as

demonstrated in Appendix I. For example, over 90% of the works listed as purchased in

Appendix I can be categorized into three genres of painting: portrait, landscape, and still-

life. Additionally, the female nude was an appealing subject matter for Japanese

collectors since it both demonstrated a personal intimacy with European culture and was

also a symbol of modern expressivity.124 Thus, rather than deliberately seeking out works

revered by the art world as masterpieces, Japanese buyers chose works of art that

resonated with them most and were easy to understand, such as paintings that evoked

memories of France, visually appealing landscapes, and modern expressive nudes.

Consequently, Japanese buyers of the 1980s boom inadvertently downplayed the

                                                                                                               122 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 21. 123 Ibid., 21. 124 Ibid., 21.

  40  

significance of masterpieces while they unknowingly increased the worth of mediocre

works of art.

While Japanese buyers of the 1980s often ignored the concept of a masterpiece,

Japanese appropriation artist Yasumasa Morimura (1951-) chose to focus on it as the

subject of his work during the 1980s boom. Morimura deconstructs the concept of the

‘masterpiece’ through questioning suppositions made about such works in Western

documentation of art history, while at the same time commenting on Japan’s absorption

of Western culture. The artist’s intention is to confront the complex relationship between

Japan’s noble defense of its own cultural traditions and the process of modernization

imposed and imported from the West. By inserting himself into the work, Morimura

recreates, re-experiences and indulges in the artistic process resulting in a work that

satirizes and simultaneously creates an homage to the Western artist and his or her

work.125 One way Morimura achieves this is through his series Self-Portrait as Art

History, which he created during the 1980s.126 More specifically, in Portrait (Futago),

1988, one example from the series, Morimura inserts multiples of his own image into

Manet’s Olympia, 1863 and portrays himself as both the courtesan and the servant,

thereby creating an Asianized version of an idealized Western world. (Figure 3.4 and

Figure 1.3 respectively) Here, he has deconstructed an iconic image and masterpiece by

transforming it into stereotypical kitsch in an effort to rid it of its mythological aura.

Additionally, Morimura makes several other subtle changes such as the placement of

                                                                                                               125 http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/feminist_art_base/gallery/yasumasamorimura.php 126 Danilo Eccher and Achille Bonito Oliva, Appearance (Milan: Edizioni Charta, 2000), 47.  

  41  

Japanese fabrics on the courtesan’s bed and the substitution of Manet’s cat with a black

‘beckoning cat’ often seen in Japanese shops, restaurants, and other business

establishments to welcome visitors.127 Eleanor Heartney, an art critic, who has written

extensively on contemporary art issues, contends that Morimura’s fascination with these

topics is partially a result of having grown up in postwar Japan where he was immersed

in the images and products of American popular culture. Consequently, his work reveals

an identity formed through virtual contact with an idealized distant world.128 Morimura

genuinely identifies with and respects the artists themselves and is commended for his

ability to satirize and simultaneously create an homage to the artist.129 Thus, in Portrait

(Futago), not only does Morimura demystify the aura of the ‘masterpiece’ but he also

confronts his struggle with his own identity and cultural heritage.

Similar to the way in which Morimura used Western masterpieces to confront the

complex relationship between Japan and Western culture, Japanese businessmen used

Western paintings to better understand the psyche of Westerners. If Japanese

businessmen could improve their understanding of Westerners’ mentality, they could

better tailor their business practices to the Western world as well as help Japan with its

strategy to become a major player from a global perspective. This thought process began

as early as the early-twentieth century when the famous Japanese collector Kojiro

Matsukata opened his Museum of Western (Occidental) Art in Tokyo in 1959. As

discussed in Chapter 1, Matsukata’s collection housed an astounding number of

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by renowned artists such as Cézanne, Manet,

                                                                                                               127 Eleanor Heartney, Art&Today (New York: Phaidon Press, Inc., 2008), 200. 128 Ibid., 200. 129 Ibid., 200.  

  42  

Renoir, Monet, van Gogh, Gauguin and Moreau.130 When asked by Willard Slater,

contributor to London’s International Studio magazine, why he decided to open the

Museum of Western Art, Matsukata responded that it was to understand the psychology

of Westerners, which will consequently enable him and his fellow citizens to

“Westernize” manufacturing and other aspects of industrial life. Matsukata states, “I care

nothing about your controversies over different schools of art; I buy examples of them

all, for all are expressive of your psychology.”131 Surprisingly, this great influential

museum in Tokyo was not opened for art’s sake, or for aesthetic pleasure, it was simply a

way to help Easterners understand what Western artists depicted in art as well as how and

why they did it. Thus, Matsukata’s massive collection of Monet, Rodin, van Gogh,

Pissarro, Courbet, Gauguin - and the impressive list goes on - was not for visual pleasure,

it was, instead, an effort to gain a better understanding of Western psyche in order to gain

more business. During the latter part of the Great War, German manufacturers enjoyed

success in America while Japanese manufacturers’ dolls with complexions and forms of

Eastern children, with their almond-shaped Oriental eyes were sent back to Japan by

American importers since they could find no market for them.132 Consequently,

Matsukata desired to understand and educate his fellow citizens on what forms and color

effects move Westerners so they could leverage this knowledge when manufacturing

goods. Matsukata believed that his Museum of Western Art would help prevent making

these types mistakes in the future.133 Thus, Matsukata’s main purpose for establishing

                                                                                                               130 Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble,” 18. 131 Willard Slater. “Why Japan Collects Western Art,” International Studio, April 1922, 151. 132 Ibid., 153. 133 Ibid., 152-153.  

  43  

the Museum of Western Art was to enable his fellow citizens to understand the

psychology of Westerners. This could have also been the case in the 1980s since Japan

was overflowing with money and it was their chance to achieve global dominance

through business practices. In order to do so, they needed to have a strong understanding

of their global competitors in order to be successful.

Another contributor to Japanese buyers’ choice of numerous mediocre

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings has to do with the art scandals that

culminated in Japan in 1990 and 1991. Rather than purchasing Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist paintings for aesthetic pleasure, the Japanese buyers involved in these

scandals bought the paintings to use in shady business deals instead, thereby making the

quality of the paintings less important. Thousands of paintings were used for money

laundering, which might have been used to fund organized crime or bribe politicians. It

was even used to raise money for political donations.    This mode of corrupt activity was

made easier in Japan since paintings are not required to be registered, which allows them

to change hands in complete anonymity, thereby making them a perfect way to conceal

assets.134 Anyone in the art world knows that valuing works of art objectively can be

difficult and shady businessmen took advantage of this fact as a way to dodge tax

authorities. Japan has no public auction market and no public conferences for

establishing art prices, which made it that much easier.135 Numerous businesses used the

ambiguous prices of art to their benefit by using the art to borrow (often from banks as

                                                                                                               134 Yoko Shibata, “The Art of a Failed Economy,” Japan Inc., December 1999, www.japaninc.com/article.php?articleID=211 (accessed August 22, 2013). 135 Ibid.

  44  

discussed in Chapter 2), lend, conceal assets, launder money, bribe, and evade taxes.136

Some speculators contend that this fraudulent use of art in Japan strongly suggests that

much of the 1980s art boom was artificially generated.137      

However, despite the use of art for fraudulent business deals in Japan, the fact

remains that Japanese buyers still chose Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of

art above any other genre during the 1980s boom. Museum, gallery, and department

store exhibits during the boom-era could be another potential influence on Japan’s

preferred aesthetic. Between 1973 and Yasuda’s purchase of Sunflowers in 1987, about

five hundred museums were built in Japan in every district and borough, many of which

were built by corporations.138 During the 1980s, there was a flurry of museum exhibits in

Japan of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, as well as of French art. (Appendix II)

The penchant for Western painting was so pronounced that when a British journalist

visited Japan for one week in the mid-Eighties, he encountered exhibitions of Modigliani,

Rubens, van Gogh, Henry Moore, Constable, Yves Klein, Durer, Cranach, Courbet and

Rodin, all of which was taking place almost simultaneously.139 The majority of the

exhibitions showcased Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. (Appendix II) For

example, in 1988 an exhibition titled “Le Japonisme” took place in Paris and at the

Museum of Western Art in Tokyo. The exhibit included works by Cézanne, Degas,

Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Van Gogh.140 Another

example, is an exhibit entitled “The Impressionist Tradition: Masterpieces from the Art

                                                                                                               136 Ibid. 137 Watson, From Manet to Manhattan, 450. 138 Ibid., 393. 139 Ibid., 394. 140 Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble,” 19.  

  45  

Institute of Chicago,” which traveled to several museums in Japan in 1986, namely the

Seibu Museum of Art in Tokyo, the Fukuoka Art Museum, and the Kyoto Municipal

Museum of Art. Furthermore, there was an exhibit titled “Treasures from the

Metropolitan Museum of Art: French Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth

Century” that took place at the Yokahama Museum of Art in 1989. This museum also

held an exhibit titled “Impressionist and Other Master Paintings from The E. G. Bührle

Collection” from November 1990 until January 1991. Additionally, the National

Museum of Western Art in Tokyo held a Monet exhibit in 1982 and held a van Gogh

exhibit in 1985. These are only a few examples of the whirlwind of exhibits of

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art held in Japan during the boom-era that

fueled Japanese collectors’ desire for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art.

A final factor that could have influenced Japanese buyers’ preference of genre

when purchasing art during the 1980s boom was various marketing activities

implemented by art world players such as the auction houses. By this time, the auction

houses had put Japan on their radar as a country of opportunity for business getting.

Christie’s began to pay attention to Japan as early as 1969, however, it was not until the

late 1980s that Japanese collectors became significant buyers.141 According to a source

that worked at Christie’s during the boom, the auction house conducted direct mail

initiatives targeting important Japanese collectors. Christie’s sent magazines and

postcards to dealers and collectors around the world announcing upcoming auctions,

which is how Saito learned of the sale of Gachet.142 Michael Findlay stated that

Christie’s auction house had a traveling exhibit in Tokyo at the time announcing the

                                                                                                               141 Martorella, Art and Business, 205. 142 Saltzman, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 323.  

  46  

upcoming auctions. Additionally, Sotheby’s had identified Japan as a market of promise

as well.    For example, in 1980 Sotheby’s assigned Kazuko Shiomi to be its representative

in Tokyo.143 In 1983, A. Alfred Taubman, then the owner of Sotheby’s, offered a seat on

Sotheby’s board to Seiji Tsutsumi of the Seibu Group.144 Sotheby’s had quickly

identified Japan as a rapidly growing market for Western art.  

Japan’s rapidly growing market for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art is yet

another indicator that, without a doubt, Japan holds an extraordinary affection for it.

Each of the aforementioned factors - symbolic capital (or the quest for social status),

taste, cultural heritage reclamation, speculation regarding Japanese buyers’ choice of

second tier art, museum and gallery exhibits, and marketing by the major auction houses -

played a significant role in fueling Japanese collectors’ desire for Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist works during the boom-era.

                                                                                                               143 Watson, From Manet to Manhattan, 393. 144 Ibid.  

  47  

Conclusion

In conclusion, I offer an examination of various factors that contributed to

Japanese buyers’ preference for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art. As

stated in the Introduction, the demand for art is a complex issue and any attempt to

understand the driving force behind collectors’ taste can be a difficult undertaking, as

demonstrated by this thesis. Japan holds a remarkable love for Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist art. This was clearly demonstrated during Japan’s economic boom in the

1980s when those who had newfound wealth chose to spend large sums of money not just

on works of art, but more specifically on Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works.

(Appendix I) This begs the question of this thesis, what was the rationale of Japanese

collectors and dealers for primarily purchasing Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art

in the mid-1980s and early 1990s versus other genres of art? This thesis not only

assessed contributing historical factors but also assessed other variables, such as

economic factors as well as possible influences on aesthetic preferences, which led them

to choose Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art above all other genres.

The first chapter addressed contributing historical factors beginning with the

Meiji Restoration. During this time, Japan’s gates opened to the West, which resulted in

an integration of Western ideas and led to new identities in Japan’s society. One example

that fueled this transformation is the change in the educational system, which impacted

their taste through the new mandate to teach the arts and sciences in school. The new

education system also caused a more defined distinction between social classes that led to

the upper class often sending their children abroad to benefit from the more prestigious

  48  

educational institutions, which consequently resulted in the absorption of Western ideas.

Artists flocked to Paris to learn innovative ideas while Paris, the artistic leader at the

time, impacted the developing traditions of modern art in Japan. This led to the

development of a strong link between Paris and Japan from 1890 to 1930.145 Japan’s

initial exposure to Western art during this time was to Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist paintings, thereby creating Japan’s everlasting affinity for the category.

Western ideas began to fuse with Japanese culture and society, made evident by the

works of art created by Japanese artists at the time as well as by the French paintings

collectors brought back to Japan.146 Furthermore, when the aspirations of Western art

shifted from focusing on representation to self-expression (representation of the inner self

was important to Japanese artists), Japanese artists recognized a connection between

modern European expressionism and traditional modes of art and, consequently,

embraced it.

Magazines, journals and books also influenced Japan’s taste. The White Birch

Society, or Shirakaba group, published a magazine that influenced both Japanese artists

and Japanese society’s reception of modern European art in the period before World War

II by emphasizing in their magazine the importance of the artist’s personality, as opposed

to the formal means employed by the artist.147 Furthermore, Hind’s book, titled The Post

Impressionists (1911) encompassed a very similar interpretation of European modernism

by arguing that Post-Impressionism is a spiritual movement that is portrayed through the

emotive and rhythmic strokes of the artist’s hand. This book was extremely popular in

                                                                                                               145 Ibid., 33.  146 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 7. 147 Ibid., 45.  

  49  

Japan and was considered by some to be “the key to French painting.”148 However, many

artists struggled with how they could incorporate the Western techniques they learned

without losing sight of their own cultural traditions. Artists such as Foujita and Umehara

attempted to merge East with West through their Easternized versions of the reclining

nude (Manet’s Olympia, 1863), a subject matter often painted in the West. Despite this

struggle with identity, artists played a significant role in educating Japan’s public on

Western ways of painting. They also played a significant role in developing the

collections of the newly wealthy. A major collector during this time was Matsukata who

opened Museum of Western Art and filled it with Impressionist and Post-Impressionist

works. As the newest thing, for collectors such as Matsukata and new wealthy

international business leaders, European painting offered an emblem of their status in

society. Many collectors acquired avant-garde European paintings as a way to proclaim

both their, and Japan’s, position in the global economy.149

The second chapter addressed influencing economic factors and acknowledged

that once Japanese buyers had the means to purchase expensive works of art, they chose

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. Some analysts claim that Japan’s asset price

bubble, which lasted from 1986 to 1991, stimulated Japanese investor demands for both

international arts and Japanese stocks during the late 1980s, which corporate assets

fueled. 150 These analysts contend that Japanese investors viewed art as a positive

complement to their portfolios. With large bank loans, inflated asset prices, surplus cash,

                                                                                                               148 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 7.  149 Ibid., 16.  150 Clare McAndrew, The International Art Market in 2011. Observations on the Art Trade over 25 Years (Helvoirt, The Netherlands: The European Fine Art Foundation, 2012), 84.

  50  

and a strong yen against the weak dollar, Japanese buyers purchased Impressionist and

Post-Impressionist paintings at a cheaper rate, which fueled the bubble and brought in

more speculators hoping to make a profit. While some analysts argue that investors view

art as a positive complement to their investment portfolios, it still does not explain

Japanese investors’ preference for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. As

previously discussed, wealth is not the only factor that influences the demand for art,

taste impacts it as well.

As discussed in the last chapter, there are various influences on aesthetic

preferences, or taste. For example, gaining an aesthetic return, or “psychic benefits,”

influences various collectors to buy. Some collectors sacrifice profits when purchasing

works of art in order to gain a higher social status, build their reputation, and accrue

economic dividends in the long-term. The newly wealthy businessmen of the twentieth-

century had a strong desire to be seen as art collectors due to the fact that Japan’s history

had promoted art collecting as a pastime that belonged to men of social status and leisure

in Japan. 151 Furthermore, owning and displaying objects of renown, such as a Renoir that

had brand recognition, was a way these businessmen could gain publicity, increase

personal prestige, announce their status as international business leaders, and also

demonstrate that they share “cultural capital” with their contemporaries.152

Furthermore, the upper class modeled themselves on the tastes of Europeans and

French culture became the archetype of modern culture.153 European styles that Japanese

collectors preferred demonstrate the influence of Japanese art that was imported into

                                                                                                               151 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 15. 152 Martorella, Art and Business, 206. 153 Ibid., 205.  

  51  

France, such as woodblock prints and Japanese objets d’art, which fueled the movement

otherwise known as “Japonisme.” As previously discussed, there was a natural similarity

of taste between the two cultures demonstrated by the way each borrowed from the other

during different phases of their respective artistic development.154 Furthermore, paintings

from the “Japonisme” movement represented Japan’s early international influence on the

modern world and therefore encompassed a part of Japan’s history. From this

perspective, Japanese buyers’ affinity for European painting was an effort to reclaim their

cultural heritage. Additionally, Cubism and other future developments in art may have

been less inherently appealing due to the traditional Japanese love of design, color, and

pattern.155 Thus, it is not surprising that purchases during the 1980s favor Impressionist

and Post-Impressionist works such as landscape and figurative works of art.

This thesis also explored explanations for Japanese buyers purchase of mediocre

works, such as sketches and studies, and why they paid astronomical prices for them.

The contemporary businessmen of the time were not interested in, nor were they aware

of, how Europeans ranked various artistic styles. Instead, they preferred “paintings of

modern life,” such as views of Paris, which could evoke memories of places they visited,

or the female nude, which demonstrated a personal intimacy with European culture and

was also a symbol of modern expressivity.156 Japanese collectors were also interested in

paintings that helped them understand the psyche of Westerners to better tailor business

practices to the West, such as manufacturing goods. Yet another possible explanation for

their purchase of unexceptional works of art is the art scandals that took place during the

                                                                                                               154 Rimer et al., Paris in Japan, 78. 155 Ibid., 78. 156 Guth et al., Japan & Paris, 21.

  52  

late 1980s. Numerous businesses used the obscure value of art to their benefit by using it

to borrow (often from banks as discussed in Chapter 2), lend, conceal assets, launder

money, bribe, and evade taxes. However, despite the use of art for fraudulent business

deals in Japan, the fact remains that Japanese buyers still chose Impressionist and Post-

Impressionist works of art above any other genre during the 1980s boom.

Museum and gallery exhibits are another probable influence on Japan’s preferred

aesthetic. During the 1980s, there was a flurry of museum exhibits in Japan of

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, as well as of French art. As discussed in the last

chapter, among the exhibitions, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism were the

foremost subject matters. For example, in 1988 an exhibition titled “Le Japonisme” took

place in Tokyo and exhibited works of Cézanne, Manet, Monet, Renoir, van Gogh, etc.157

Another exhibit entitled “The Impressionist Tradition: Masterpieces from the Art Institute

of Chicago,” which traveled to several museums in Japan in 1986, also took place, in

addition to many others. Finally, art world players such as the auction houses, who, at

this point in time, had recognized Japan as a market with business potential, implemented

various marketing activities such as traveling exhibits and direct mail initiatives.

In closing, my research indicates that there are a plethora of factors, such as

historical, economic, and aesthetic influences, that contributed to Japanese collectors’

choice in genre. It is not difficult to understand Japanese buyers’ rationale for purchasing

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art when one considers the emotional

impact this genre of painting can have. As the viewer stands in front of the actual

painting, he or she can be brought to tears by the emotion that pours out of the painting

                                                                                                               157 Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble,” 19.

  53  

through the expressive, rhythmic brushstrokes the artist used to portray his inner self.

Van Gogh says it best when he writes about his very famous painting Gachet in June of

1890:  

I’ve done the portrait of M. Gachet with a melancholy expression, which might well seem like a grimace to those who see it. And yet I had to paint it like that to convey how much expression and passion there is in our present-day heads in comparison with the old calm portraits, and how much longing and crying out. Sad but gentle, yet clear and intelligent, that is how many portraits ought to be done. At times it might well make some impression on people. There are modern heads that may be looked at for a long time, and that may perhaps be looked back on with longing a hundred years later.158

Little did van Gogh know the historical significance and great impact his Portrait of Dr.

Gachet, 1890 would have around the world…

                                                                                                               158 Saltzman, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 329-330.

  54  

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Assouline, Pierre. Discovering Impressionism: The Life of Paul Durand-Ruel New York: The Vendome Press, 1987. Baldassari, Anne, Elizabeth Cowling, John Elderfield, John Golding, Isabelle Monod-Fontaine, and Kirk Varnedoe. Matisse Picasso. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2002. Bocart, Fabian, Ken Bastiaensen and Peter Cauwels. “The 1980s Price Bubble on (Post) Impressionism.” Association for Cultural Economics International (ACEI), ACEI Working Paper Series, November 2011. http://www.culturaleconomics.org/awp/AWP-03-2011.pdf (accessed April 20, 2013). Campbell, Rachel A.J. “Art as a Financial Investment.” Tilburg University, Department of Finance; Maastricht University, Limburg Institute of Financial Economics, Working Paper, March 2007. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=978467 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.978467 Campbell, Rachel A.J. “Art as an Alternative Investment,” Journal of Alternative Investments 10, no. 4 (Spring 2008): 64-81. Spaenjers, Christophe. “Returns and Fundamentals in International Art Markets.” Department of Finance, Tilburg University, Job Market Paper, November 2010. Chen, J.S. Constance. “Merchants of Asianness: Japanese Art Dealers in the United States in the Early Twentieth Century,” Journal of American Studies 44, no. 1 (February 2010): 19-46. Donaldson, Jeff, Socorro Quintero, and Kenneth Wieand. “Are Real Assets Priced Internationally? Evidence from the Art Market,” Multinational Finance Journal 2, no. 3 (September 1998): 167-187. Eccher, Danilo and Achille Bonito Oliva. Appearance. Milan: Edizioni Charta, 2000. Findlay, Michael. (2013, May 3). Personal interview. Findlay, Michael. The Value of Art. New York: Prestel Publishing, 2012. Frey, B.S. and Pommerehne, W.W. “Art Investment: An Empirical Inquiry,” Southern Economic Journal 56, no. 2 (October 1989): 396-409. Goetzmann, William. “Accounting for Taste: Art and the Financial Markets Over Three Centuries,” The American Economic Review 83, no. 5 (December 1993): 1370-1376.

  55  

Goodwin, James. The International Art Markets: The Essential Guide for Investors and Collectors. Berkeley: Kogan Page Limited, 2010. Goodwin, James. “Who Will Follow Baby Boomers into the Art Market?: From 2013 China Will Have a Declining Working Population…but India’s Will Grow for 30 Years,” The Art Newspaper, 228, October 2011. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Who+will+follow+baby+boomers+into+the+art+market%3F/24744 (accessed April 20, 2013). Guth, Christine M. E., Alicia Volk, and Emiko Yamanashi. Japan & Paris: Impressionism, Postimpressionism, and the Modern Era. Honolulu, HI: Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2004. Heartney, Eleanor. Art & Today. New York: Phaidon Press, Inc., 2008. Hind, C. Lewis. The Post Impressionists. London: Mehuen & Co. Ltd., 1911. Hiraki, Takato, Akitoshi Ito, Darius Alexander Spieth, Naoya Takezawa, “How Did Japanese Investments Influence International Art Prices?” Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 44, no. 6 (December 2009): 1489–1514. Hook, Philip. The Ultimate Trophy: How the Impressionist Painting Conquered the World. Philadelphia, PA: Prestel Publishers, 2009. Kurtenbach, Elaine. “New Japanese Collectors Drive Up Prices of Western Art: Experts See Their Purchases as Fueling a Worldwide Surge in the Market. Today’s Corporate Buyer is Likely to Have Made Money in Real Estate or Financing,” Los Angeles Times, February 8, 1990. http://articles.latimes.com/1990-02-08/entertainment/ca-657_1_western-art (accessed April 20, 2013). Lei, Vivian, Charles Noussair, and Charles Plott. “Nonspeculative Bubbles in Experimental Asset Markets: Lack of Common Knowledge,” Econometrica 69, no. 4 (July 2001): 831–859. McAndrew, Clare. Emerging Economies and the Art Trade in 2008: Globalisation and the Art Market. Helvoirt, The Netherlands: The European Fine Art Foundation, 2009. McAndrew, Clare. The International Art Market in 2011. Observations on the Art Trade over 25 Years. Helvoirt, The Netherlands: The European Fine Art Foundation, 2012. Mei, Jianping and Michael Moses. “Art as an Investment and the Underperformance of Masterpieces,” The American Economic Review 92, no. 5 (December 2002): 1656-1668. Munroe, Alexandra. Japanese Art After 1945: Scream Against the Sky. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1994.

  56  

Murakami, Takashi. Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture. New York: Japan Society, 2005. Norman, Geraldine. “Trapped in a Blue Period: Not even a hugely discounted Picasso can find a buyer today in recession-hit Tokyo, and the Japanese art world has been rocked by scandals.” The Independent, February 6, 1994. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art-market--trapped-in-a-blue-period-not-even-a-hugely-discounted-picasso-can-find-a-buyer-today-in-recessionhit-tokyo-and-the-japanese-art-world-has-been-rocked-by-scandals-geraldine-norman-reports-1392352.html (accessed August 24, 2013). Rimer, Thomas J. and Shuji Takashina with Gerald D.Bolas. Paris in Japan: The Japanese Encounter with European Painting. St. Louis, MO: Washington University Press, 1987. Robertson, Iain. Understanding International Art Markets and Management. New York: Routledge, 2005. Roehner, B. and D. Sornette. “Analysis of the phenomenon of speculative trading in one of its basic manifestations: postage stamp bubbles,” International Journal of Modern Physics C 10, no. 6 (September 1999): 1099-1116. Rosenblum, Robert, Mary Anne Stevens, Ann Dumas. 1900: Art at the Crossroads. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2000. Shibata, Yoko. “The Art of a Failed Economy.” Japan Inc., December 1999. www.japaninc.com/article.php?articleID=211 (accessed August 22, 2013). Saltzman, Cynthia. Portrait of Dr. Gachet: The Story of a van Gogh Masterpiece: Modernism, Money, Politics, Collectors, Dealers, Taste, Greed, and Loss. New York: Viking Penguin, 1998. Schooler, Carmi. “The Individual in Japanese History Parallels to and Divergences from the European Experience,” Sociological Forum 5, no. 4 (December 1990): 569-594. Schuster, Ingrid. “Effects of Japanese Art on French and German Literature in the Nineteenth Century,” Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 1, no. 1 (Winter 1974): 76-88. Slater, Willard. “Why Japan Collects Western Art,” International Studio (April 1922): 151-153. Spaenjers, Christophe. “Returns and Fundamentals in International Art Markets.” Department of Finance, Tilburg University, Job Market Paper, November 2010.

  57  

Sterngold, James. “Some Big Japanese Art Purchases Are Under Scrutiny for Scandal.” The New York Times, April 23, 1991. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/04/23/business/some-big-japanese-art-purchases-are-under-scrutiny-for-scandal.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm (accessed August 24, 2013). Visita, Christine M. "Japanese Cultural Transition: Meiji Architecture and the Effect of Cross-cultural Exchange with the West," The Forum: Cal Poly's Journal of History 1, no. 1 (2009): Article 7. Walker, Richard W. “Flower Power,” ARTnews 86, no. 5 (May 1987): 32. Walker, Richard W. “The Power of the Yen,” ARTnews 86, no. 7 (September 1987): 25. Walker, Richard W. “Going, going…Gone,” ARTnews 87, no. 11 (November 1988): 134-136. Watson, Peter. From Manet to Manhattan: The Rise of the Modern Art Market. New York: Random House Publishing, 1992. Wieand, Kenneth, Jeff Donaldson, and Socorro Quintero. “Are Real Assets Priced Internationally? Evidence from the Art Market,” Multinational Finance Journal 2, no. 3 (September, 1998): 167-187. Yiengpruksawan, Mimi Hall. “Japanese Art History 2001: The State and Stakes of Research,” The Art Bulletin 83, no. 1 (March 2001): 105-122.                                  

  58  

Figures for Chapter 1: CONTRIBUTING HISTORICAL FACTORS

Figure 1.1

Vincent van Gogh Sunflowers, 1888 National Gallery, London

 

Figure 1.2

Foujita Tsuguharu Reclining Nude, 1922 Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris  

Figure 1.3

Edouard Manet Olympia, 1863 Musée d’Orsay, Paris  

 

 

 

  59  

Figure 1.4

Umehara Ryuzaburo Nude and Fans, 1938 Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki  

 

  60  

Charts for Chapter 2: CONTRIBUTING ECONOMIC FACTORS

Chart 2.1: Performance  of  Various  Fine  Art  Markets  1976-­‐2006  

Chart 2.2: Average Prices of Impressionist Works in Yen and USD

Source: Campbell, “Art as an Alternative Investment,” 29.

 Source: McAndrew, The International Art Market in 2011, 89.  

 

  61  

Chart 2.3: Foreign Exchange: JPY to USD

Chart 2.4: Comparison of the IWOP in USD and the IWOP in JPY

 Source: Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble,” 16.

Source: Bocart et al., “The 1980s Price Bubble,” 16.  

  62  

Figures for Chapter 3: INFLUENCES ON AESTHETIC PREFERENCES

Figure 3.1

Pablo Picasso The Mirror, 1932

Private Collection

Figure 3.2

Henri Matisse Apples, 1916 The Art Institute of Chicago  

Figure 3.3

Pablo Picasso Girl Before a Mirror, 1932 Museum of Modern Art, New York  

 

 

 

  63  

Figure 3.4

Yasumasa Morimura Portrait (Futago), 1988 Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco    

 

  64  

APPENDIX I

  65  

Painting Description Date Purchased Price Paid Image

Vincent van Gogh, Sunflowers, 1888

March 1987 from Christie's, London $39.9 million

Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Dr. Gachet, 1890

May 15, 1990 from Christie's, New York

$82.5 million

Auguste Renoir, Au Moulin de la Gallette, 1876

May 17, 1990 $78.1 million

Pablo Picasso, Les Noces de Pierette, 1905

1989 $51.65 million

Japan's Purchases of Impressionist & Post-Impressionist Paintings Purchased During 1980s Bubble* (*this list is not comprehensive)

Tomonori Tsurumaki (real estate financier)

Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance Company

Ryoei Saito (owner of Japan's second largest paper manufacturer, Daishowa Paper Manufacturing, Japan.)

  66  

Pablo Picasso, Saltimbanque Seated with Arms Crossed, 1923

Sotheby’s sale 1980 $3 million

Auguste Renoir, Georgette Charpentier, Seated, 1876

1987 $10 million

Georges Rouault, Clown, c. 1907

Sotheby’s evening sale on May 11, 1987, Estimate:

$300-400 million$1.045 million

Marc Chagall, Anniversaire, 1915

$15 million

Pierre Auguste Renoir, Femme à l'éventail, 1906

Christie’s evening sale on May 12, 1987,

Estimate: $1.2 - 1.6 million$2.31 million

Kazuo Fujii (a Tokyo dealer)

Bridgestone Museum

  67  

Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Eugenia (Mäda) Primavesi, 1914

Sotheby’s May 11, 1987 evening sale,

Estimate: $3 - 4 million$3.85 million

Pablo Picasso, Mirror, 1932

Sotheby’s Wednesday, November 15, 1989

Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture,

Part I; cover lot; Estimate. $20-30 million

$26.4 million

Willem de Kooning, Interchange, 1955

Sotheby’s, November 9, 1989 $20.7 million

Pablo Picasso, Acrobat and Young Harlequin, 1905

1988 $37.6 million

Shigeki Kameyama (of Mountain Tortoise Company in Tokyo)

Mitsukoshi Department Store

  68  

Claude Monet, Nymphéas, 1905 November 1988? $10.9 million

Auguste Renoir, Tête de jeune femme au foulard bleu, 1876

$3.76 million

Pablo Picasso, La Maternité, 1905

November 14, 1988 at Christie’s in New York $24.75 million

Vincent Van Gogh, Carrière près de Saint-Remy, 1889

Sotheby’s Wednesday, November 15, 1989

Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture,

Part I; Estimate: $9-12 million

$11.55 million

Aska International (purchased by Yasumichi Morishita for Aoyama Gallery (which Aska owns)), accounted for 30% of all buying on imp. art

Seibu Department Store

  69  

Paul Gauguin, Entre les Lys, 1889

Sotheby’s Wednesday, November 15, 1989

Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture,

Part I; Estimate: $7-9 million

$11 million

Pablo Picasso, Au Moulin Rouge (Le Divan Japonais), 1901

Sotheby’s London, October 18, 1989 $8.25 million

Édouard Vuillard, La Table de toilette, 1895

$7.70 million

Vincent van Gogh, L’Homme est en mer, 1889

$7.15 million

Paul Gauguin, Petit Breton à l’Oie, 1889 $6.83 million

  70  

Claude Monet, Fin d’après-midi, Vètheuil, 1880

Prince Kojiro Matsukata (1922). Collection Irmano,

Japan (circa 1928). Fujikawa Gallery, Japan Sale: Christie's, London,

November 27, 1989, lot 8. Sale: Christie's, London,

November 30, 1992, lot 8.

$6.55 million

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait de Gabrielle (Jeune Fille Aux Fleurs), c. 1900

Sotheby’s Wednesday, November 15, 1989

Impressionist and Modern Paintings and Sculpture,

Part I; Estimate $4 -5 million

$4.62 million

Claude Monet, Bords de la Sein, un coin de Berge, 1881

Sale, John T. Dorrance Jr., New York, Sotheby's,

October18-19, 1989, lot 28 $3.74 million

Gustave Caillebotte, Pêcheurs sur la Seine, 1888

$2.06 million

Claude Monet, Promenade near Argenteuil , 1873

$1.43 million

  71  

Jean-François Millet, Antoinette Hébert Looking in the Mirror, 1845

$802,400

Amadeo Modigliani, Girl with Pigtails, 1918

1988 $2.2 million

Paul Gauguin, Vas de Fleurs (Lilas), 1885 $310,000

Marc Chagall, La Nappe Mauve, 1972 Christie's auction, 1990

Bought for $312,000, sold

to Tokyo collector for

$514,000

The city of Nagoya

Tokyo Museum

Ely Sakhai (sold his purchased works (& used them to make fakes) to Japanese collectors during boom)

  72  

Salvador Dali, Battle of Tétouan, 1962

1988 $2.42 million

Claude Monet, Le Grand Canal, 1908 November 15, 1989 $10.5 million

Maurice Utrillo, Rue Norvins, c. 1939

February 11, 1987 at Sotheby's $125,500

Foujita Tsugouharu, Mère et enfant, 1959

February 11, 1987 at Sotheby's,

Estimate: $40-60K$187,000

Maurice de Vlaminck, Le Village au Temps Gris

February 11, 1987 at Sotheby's,

Estimate: $30-40K$71,500

Unnamed Japanese Collectors

  73  

APPENDIX II

  74  

Title Date Location

Monet 9 October 1982 - 28 November 1982

The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

Monet 8 December 1982 - 30 January 1983

National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto

Vincent van Gogh 12 October 1985 - 8 December 1985

The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

Vincent van Gogh 19 December 1985 - 2 February 1986 Nagoya-City Museum

The Impressionist Tradition: Masterpieces from the Art Institute of Chicago

18 October 1986 – 17 December 1986

Seibu Museum of Art, Tokyo

Rodin 13 May 1988 - 12 June 1988 Kurayoshi Museum

Japonisme (Japonism) 23 September 1988 - 11 December 1988

The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

Treasures from The Metropolitan Museum of Art: French Art from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century

25 March 1989 – 4 June, 1989

Yokahama Museum of Art

The French modern painting, from the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

15 April 1989 - 14 May 1989

The Miyakonojo City Museum

The French modern art, from the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

10 April 1990 - 23 April 1990

Ibara Municipal Denchu Art Museum, Ibara

The French modern art, from the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

28 April 1990 - 13 May 1990

The Cultural Center of Kagawa Prefecture,

TakamatsuThe French modern art, from the National Museum of

Western Art, Tokyo19 May 1990 -

3 June 1990The Cultural Center of

Toyota CityImpressionist and Other Master Paintings from

The E.G.Bührle Collection2 November 1990-13 January 1991

Yokahama Museum of Art

The French modern art, from the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

28 September 1991 - 27 October 1991

The Hachinohe City Museum of Art

The French modern art, from the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

1 November 1991 - 24 November 1991

The Tendo City Museum of Art

1991

Exhibits in Japan from 1982 to 1991**Not a comprehensive list

1986

1988

1989

1990

1982

1985