Page 15 - japanese and korean art Utterberg Collection Christie's March 22 2022

涅槃寂静 | THE COLLECTION OF DAVID AND NAYDA UTTERBERG

David and Nayda Utterberg in Japan. 1992. Courtesy of Nayda Utterberg David Utterberg in the abbot’s quarter’s of Myōshin-ji Temple, Kyoto, enjoying
the seventeenth-century sliding-door (fusuma) paintings by Kano Tan’yū. 1988.
Courtesy of Nayda Utterberg

David was a loner. He was old school in his taste and Korean screen and had it in the back of my station wagon. He during his time in Hong Kong, although he did not have much From the beginning, he was interested in Buddhist things. David
methodology. He was very serious about collecting, but private. insisted on looking at it after dinner and we opened it up in the money until after he went to Japan and started his own business, in also liked ink paintings. At the same time, he was collecting art-
He collected because he really loved the stuff, not for the benefit parking lot of my hotel. He wanted to buy it, but I declined. It 1981. One of the last things he purchased from Tajima, around 2014, deco furniture. He had a good sense of what he liked and strong
of curators. Perhaps that’s why he fell below the radar. He didn’t was for my personal collection. was a Gandharan stone figure of a standing Buddha, over one meter personal opinions. As far as I know, he had no special advisor.
need to show his things and never had an exhibition. tall. Tajima recalls: He knew all of the Japanese dealers here. I introduced him to
What I do know about his collecting interest is that he bought
Robert Moore, a Los Angeles dealer and collector known as a high-quality Korean ceramics, Song ceramics, Ming furniture, I had offered it to the Nara National Museum, but the curator the American collectors Sylvan Barnet and Bill Burto. They
spoke to one another quite often. They were good friends and
specialist in Korean art, recalls that he was introduced to David by antique Chinese carpets, Japanese Buddhist sculpture and art- there turned it down because it has some original gold pigment had similar tastes—I mention that because David was a difficult
Tajima Mitsuru of London Gallery, Tokyo, in the 1980s. David deco French furniture. He sold some of the deco furniture at on the surface and that made him suspicious. I illustrated it on man and probably had few close friends. He bought a painting
told Moore how he became acquainted with Taj. He was in Tokyo Sotheby’s in New York in 2015. the cover of my 2010 catalogue of Buddhist art. David took a of Tenjin Visiting China from Sylvan in 1993.
as a medical equipment sales representative on one of his first trips, long time to decide on that purchase. He placed it against one
when he looked across the boulevard and spotted an art gallery Tajima Mitsuru (b. 1936) also shared his thoughts with us. The first wall in his Seattle apartment, well secured against earthquakes. I went to see him in October 2019, about a month before he
thing David tried to buy from him was a Kamakura-period sculpture
called London Gallery, and he thought to himself, “They probably of the two-year-old Shotoku Taishi. He had just unpacked the piece David was a serious student. I have a good collection of art unexpectedly died. We visited the Seattle Art Museum, where
speak English.” And that’s when he met Taj, who had in fact lived in we met Xiaojin Wu and the director, who showed us the
London for several years in order to learn English. Taj used to visit and was setting it up for display in his gallery in Tokyo, when he books and he bought all the same ones—he built himself an newly renovated Asian galleries. David was in a wheelchair by
saw David peeping in through the front window. He invited him
excellent library. He was a very smart man, I think.
the West Coast two or three times a year. He is a good teacher and then. Unlike most people with a physical illness, he never, ever
probably helped train David’s eye. And David was a quick learner. in and quoted him a price. David, disappointed, said, “No, I don’t David and Nayda came to Japan as often as four times a year. We complained. He was a fighter.
Moore remembers: have the money for that.” Tajima sold the Shotoku to the Princeton had dinners together, but David made a point of saying that he
University Art Museum in 1984. Julia Meech, Consultant
The Bay area was a better source of Asian art for me than Los David lived in Japan for a while near the Nishimachi International would never eat at an Italian restaurant in Tokyo. He thought
Italian food should only be eaten in Italy. We traveled to Europe
Angeles. On one of my buying visits to San Francisco, David
and I had dinner together. I told him that I had just bought a School in Motoazabu, near Roppingi and the London Gallery. He together, and I would stay at their apartment when I went to
had studied some Japanese. He developed an interest in antiquities the West Coast.