Sotheby’s Hong Kong auctions 125 works from Japan’s Okada Museum of Art
Japan’s Okada Museum of Art is selling off its collection as its founder, Kazuo Okada, settles a $50 million legal bill stemming from his long-running feud with casino tycoon Steve Wynn. Okada is an 83-year-old billionaire and former chairman of Tokyo Universal Entertainment.
Sotheby’s Hong Kong has acquired 125 works, which will be auctioned on November 22. The collection includes iconic works by Katsushika Hokusai Big waves on the Kanagawa coast (1830-32), a rare Qianlong “Eight Treasures” vase, and a pair of 16th-century six-panel screens by Muromachi period Kano Gennobu. Several pieces are expected to sell for millions of dollars.
Wynn and Okada became friends decades ago and co-founded Las Vegas-based hotel-casino operator Wynn Resorts in 2002. However, relations soured a few years later when they accused each other of making questionable payments to Asian public officials. In 2012, Okada was removed as vice chairman of Wynn Resorts and the company redeemed 20% of its shares in Universal Entertainment at a discount. The latter disputed the redemption amount in court, and Okada eventually prevailed in 2018, reaching an out-of-court settlement in which Wynn and Wynn Resorts agreed to pay $2.6 billion.
However, when Okada’s law firm, Bartlit Beck, sent him the $50 million bill, he claimed the amount was too much. The company successfully sued in binding court arbitration, and Okada is now required to pay.
“This is probably one of the most exquisite collections of its kind,” said Nicolas Chow, chairman of Sotheby’s Asia and global head of Asian art. new york times. “What we have is basically some of the greatest ceramics, artifacts and paintings from China, Japan and Korea, 3,000 years old.”
Big waves on the Kanagawa coastArguably the most famous Japanese woodblock print in the world, it is part of Katsushika Hokusai’s highly regarded “Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji” series. The British Museum in London owns three works from the series, the Metropolitan Museum of Art owns four, and the Maidstone Museum in England owns one.
this new york times According to the report, online information for the Sotheby’s auction showed that the artworks were consigned by “the agent of the court-appointed receiver of the shares of Okada Art Co., Ltd.” in accordance with an order issued by the Hong Kong court.
The Okada Museum opened in 2013 in the forests surrounding the Hakone Mountains in Japan’s Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park, west of Tokyo. Its collection was built over more than 30 years with the help of Kochukyo Co., a famous Japanese art dealer founded by the late antique dealer Hirota Matsushige.
The museum did not respond art newsComments requested at time of publication.
