Page 13 - Christie's Mineo Hata Collection Sept. 21, 2023

M I N E O

H A T A

A N I N S T I N C T I V E E Y E

ata Mineo is an antiques dealer whose actions greatly impacted the Asian
Hart market. He wields a powerful paddle at major auctions, acquiring many
significant works of art. News of his acquisitions swiftly follows, spreading rapidly
throughout Japan.

Mineo was born to a family of soy sauce brewers in 1949 near Shimane Prefecture’s
Izumo Grand Shrine, a place rich in legend and heralded as the gathering place of
ancient gods by Japan’s oldest texts, such as Kojiki (c. 712 CE) and Nihon shoki (c.
720 CE). Growing up surrounded by this landscape and its palpable divinity, he
developed a distinct aesthetic sensitivity. As with most families in the soy sauce
business, his family was financially comfortable, and his grandfather also served as
the chair of the village council.
Mineo entered adulthood along with the rest of the first postwar generation at a
time when Japan’s economy was rapidly changing. In 1967 he moved to Tokyo from
Shimane riding the wave of the “group employment” phenomenon, the mass hiring
of high school graduates from around the country by companies in the capital to
fuel rapidly growing sectors. Once there, he began working for a company dealing
in medical devices by visiting doctors’ offices door-to-door, but decided that this
should not be his life’s work.

Around this time, Mineo’s interests began to shift toward antiquities. He began to
frequent antique shops as he continued his company work, purchasing pieces that
piqued his interest. Taking inspiration from the written work of Mingei folk-craft
movement founder Yanagi Sōetsu, Mineo left his salaried job in 1976.

By this time, Mineo had a family to support, and there were concerns about the
viability of his career path. However, Japan was in the middle of an economic boom,
and he thought that things would work themselves out. Nevertheless, his early
forays into art dealing proved challenging, and Mineo found himself appraising
curiosities like tortoise shells rather than fine art. When his second son was born,
Mineo could not initially pay the hospital bill, but managed to gather the funds
Mineo Hata, circa 2020, in his home in Kobe, Japan, which has been fitted with the dining room of the Honkon-maru, a transpacific steamship.
秦峰⁸
年攝於日本神戶家中ǐ Ւ宅邸中包括̞跨太平洋汽船 ğ香港丸Ġ 号ⅲ餐廳整體部ֱ through the well-timed sale of an early Imari porcelain.

10 M I N E O H A T A A N I N S T I N C T I V E E Y E 靈心慧目ě秦峰⁸中४藝術集珍 11