Page 53 - September 21 2021 Important Japanese Art Christie's NYC

THE RAYMOND A. BIDWELL COLLECTION

aymond Austin Bidwell (1876–1954) was a probate lawyer in a catalogue by the ukiyo-e scholar Kobayashi Tadashi, now director of
Springfield, Massachusetts, where he was born and raised. He the Okada Museum in Hakone, Japan. Kobayashi had made a special trip
Rwas in the Harvard Class of 1899 and graduated from Harvard to Springfield in 1991 together with Professor Tsuji Nobuo, who was
Law School in 1903. He is said to have acquired his first Japanese print as attracted to Kuniyoshi’s originality and humor, and Yasumura Toshinobu,
an undergraduate. His early purchases were made at the Boston branch of Curator of the Itabashi Art Museum. After reviewing the collection, they
Yamanaka & Co. on Boylston Street. He went on to buy at auctions in selected 117 works by Kuniyoshi, but also paid attention to the earlier
New York such as the 1916 Blanchard sale. He was most active between prints that Bidwell conscientiously collected to put Kuniyoshi into context
1920 and 1926, buying at the Hamilton Easter Field and the Arthur Ficke and create a full-fledged historical survey of ukiyo-e.
sales in 1920, the Spaulding and Schraubstadter sales in 1921 and the Alexis
Rouart sale in 1922. He also made purchases from the dealer S. H. Mori in Kobayashi wrote in the 1994 catalogue: “Finally, we were delighted by
the Fine Arts Building in Chicago and from the Walpole Galleries in New the unexpected find of a small number of high quality nikuhitsu ukiyo-e
York. Bidwell and his wife spent two-and-a-half months in Japan in 1925, paintings in the Springfield Collection. . . . I will note here that, just as
and he began to concentrate on the works of his favorite artist, Utagawa Yasumura comments on Mr. Bidwell’s discerning eye, I too am in awe of
Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), at a time when the artist was little appreciated this collector’s superb taste.”
in Japan. He had a Japanese room made to order in Japan and installed
it in his home for the display of his Japanese and Chinese art. He also There are Bidwell paintings in the current sale, including an ukiyo-e
collected Chinese bronzes, pottery and porcelain for educational purposes, painting of Two Beauties by Maki Bokusen (1775–1824), an artist from Nagoya
to constitute an overview of China’s artistic heritage. In the 1930s, Bidwell (lot 82). Yasumura singled out this painting for special mention as “truly
published articles on Kuniyoshi, as well as archaic Chinese bronzes, in the a masterpiece” in the 1994 Japanese catalogue. He notes that Bokusen
journal Artibus Asiae. studied with Utamaro, but was also a student of Hokusai, who twice
overnighted at his house in Nagoya. Two Beauties, according to Yasumura,
Bidwell was a trustee of the Springfield Library and Museums Association displays many characteristics associated with Hokusai from his mid-forties
from 1943 until his death. In 1960, his widow, Bertha Upham Bidwell to his mid-fifties.
(1872-1962), donated their comprehensive collection of 1,000 prints by
Kuniyoshi—one of the best and largest in the world—and 500 by other Yasumura also marveled at the painting Tiger Looking at the Moon by Totoya
artists to the Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield. Bidwell was single- Hokkei (1780–1850) (lot 83). Hokkei, like Bokusen, was a student of
handedly responsible for forging an interest in Kuniyoshi in the twentieth Hokusai, and his tiger, with its emphasis on curiously realistic musculature,
century. In 1961, Basil W. Robinson (1912–2005), Deputy Keeper of the resembles several by Hokusai, including Tiger in the Snow, formerly in the
Department of Metalwork at the Victoria & Albert Museum, published the collection of Raymond Bushell, and sold at Christie’s New York in 1999.
first monograph on Kuniyoshi. This painting by Hokkei, in Yasumura’s opinion, becomes a touchstone
for evaluating works thought to be by Hokusai, but are actually the work
Bidwell’s Kuniyoshi prints were published twice by the Springfield of his brilliant student.
Museums in groundbreaking exhibitions—in 1968, and again in 1980. In
1978, a selection of Bidwell prints went to the Riccar Museum, Tokyo, The present sale includes twenty-two of Bidwell’s Kuniyoshi prints and
for the first comprehensive Kuniyoshi exhibition at a Japanese institution. thirty-seven by earlier ukiyo-e artists, as well as several paintings. All
In 1993, the ukiyo-e specialist Suzuki Juzo published a massive tome funds realized through the sale will be used by the Museums to support art
reevaluating Kuniyoshi, and then, in 1994, the Bidwell print collection, acquisitions and collections care.
with an emphasis on Kuniyoshi, traveled to three museums in Japan, with

The young Mr. Raymond A. Bidwell, photo taken
by the Notman Photographic Co.