Page 6 - Bonhams Auction NYC Japanese and Korean Art March 15, 2017

JAPANESE PRINTS FROM
THE COLLECTION OF JEFFREY M. KAPLAN
Jeffrey M. Kaplan is a man of remarkable taste. His wide range of
interests are fuelled by his insatiable curiosity of all things cultural. fan print of a hawk in flight (lot 6023), and the oversized vertical
Collecting categories include not only Asian art and Japanese
woodblock prints in particular, but reach into such disparate areas
as 20th century design, European furniture & decorative arts and Art
Glass of the 19th-21st centuries. Over a relatively short period of time
Mr. Kaplan has managed to assemble an astonishing array of objects
spanning various media, and a period of some 1000 years.
Mr. Kaplan was raised in an artistic and cultured family. He is a
graduate of the University of Michigan; double major in Art History and
English Literature, and received his juris doctorate from Yale School of
Law. He began collecting in earnest in his thirties, and came relatively
late to Japanese prints, but soon developed a keen eye and acquired
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many iconic (and often rare) works by the masters such as Hokusai’s
Minamoto no toru (lot 6018), or Hiroshige’s vertical diptych of Fuji
River (lot 6051). Perhaps most importantly, Mr. Kaplan has taken great
pleasure in living with his entire collection as a single entity, acting not
only as steward, but also as curator; regularly rotating works in and out
of circulation, hanging and re hanging. He eventually had to acquire
neighboring residences and expand his wall space, in order to live with
his expansive collection.
Bonhams is proud to offer Japanese prints from the collection of
Jeffrey M. Kaplan, one of the largest and most comprehensive private
collections to come to sale in recent years.