Page 6 - Japanese Art September 2017 New York

MARILYN ACKERMAN (1930-2012)

Marilyn Ackerman was an unusually inquiring observer and She directed her ardor and affection in all directions: film,
eclectic collector. For some fifty years she tracked and music, literature, politics, theatre, and her family. Her annual
attended the auctions of New York and London, small and trips to the Cannes Film Festival with her husband Meyer
large galleries, and private collectors for their objects from Ackerman, a pioneering theater exhibitor and foreign film
Asia, with a sensitive eye, always, for those from Japan: distributor, inspired her to develop the idea of subscription
satsuma, cloisonné, porcelains, bronzes, metals, woodworks, cinema clubs as forums for film enthusiasts. She founded the
and more. Never specializing in only one thing, always Westchester Cinema Club, now running for 35 years, which
seeking freshness and discovery. And always, she believed has served as the model for countless film clubs throughout
in her intuition, collecting what instantly excited her, and the country, and where people still gather to discuss and
struck her as unusual, rare and even, sometimes, eccentric. dissect movies, one of her own favorite pastimes. But,
mostly she collected objects, Japanese objects, always
Marilyn started early. The Beacon, New York of her childhood seeing the artificers and the culture that shaped the pieces
was a mundane place that she transfigured with the stories she collected. If asked, and many did—she was an easy
she solicited from strangers sitting on summer porches talker, a vibrant and charismatic presence—she perceptively
and behind winter doors. These strangers kindly and often described the qualities she saw in every piece. They
gave her access to their attics and the forgotten objects were all icons, concealers and revealers of hidden worlds,
of their lives. She collected these remnants, entranced by requiring the right and discerning eye to see them. She
the singular ability of each object to conjure worlds beyond lived surrounded by the objects that reflected her vision, that
Beacon. Initially, it was books. The 1921 Modern Library nurtured her imagination and sharpened her intuition. In
edition of Passages from the Diary of Samuel Pepys, or offering this collection for auction, we hope that the delight
the 1925 Modern Library edition of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. she experienced in selecting and savoring each piece will be
Dalloway. A folklorically decorative edition of Gogol’s rekindled in their new owners.
Mirgorod published in Moscow without a publication date.
Each book valued less for its content than for its design: each The Ackerman family
design revealing new ways of seeing, and each new way of
seeing refining her capacity for creative insight.

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