Asamerry, which will celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2023, was founded in 1953. Ingres products have an even longer history, dating back to its founding in 1894. In 1920, founder Hatsujiro Yamamoto passed the family name on to his adopted son, Kiyoshi Yamamoto. Kiyoshi took on the name of Hatsujiro Yamamoto II. This time, we will be focusing on another side of Hatsujiro Yamamoto II: his side as an art collector.
Yamamoto Hatsujiro was born in 1887 into the Toda family, landowners in Okayama Prefecture. He married Hana, the eldest daughter of the Yamamoto family, who ran a hosiery business in Senba, Osaka, and became an adopted son-in-law. In 1920, he inherited the family business and took on the name Yamamoto Hatsujiro II.
Hatsujiro was in his 40s when he began collecting art, around the time he had started to have financial freedom from his business. Looking for artwork to display in his newly built home, he began collecting calligraphy pieces, such as ink-written characters and Zen paintings. He particularly preferred powerful and unique works.
When introducing Hatsujiro's side as a collector, we cannot leave out the Osaka-born painter Saeki Yuzo. After graduating from the Western Painting Department of the Tokyo School of Fine Arts (now Tokyo University of the Arts), Saeki Yuzo traveled to France in 1924. After his own work was criticized as academic, he began to pursue his own unique style of expression. When Hatsujiro saw Saeki's works, such as "Brick Ware (1928)," he felt "a strange, throbbing sensation in his chest."
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After that, Hatsujiro spent about five years collecting around 150 of Saeki Yuzo's major works. In 1937, he held an exhibition at the Tokyo Prefectural Art Museum (now the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum) and also self-published "Saeki Yuzo Art Collection." He apparently even had plans to build a museum. Hatsujiro was so enamoured with the works that it was as if he felt a sense of mission: "I was born to introduce Saeki Yuzo to the world."
However, the situation changed dramatically when war broke out. Towards the end of the Pacific War, it became difficult to store the art works. Hatsujiro did everything he could, such as evacuating some of the works to Okayama, but in the air raids of 1945, about two-thirds of the Saeki Yuzo collection (approximately 100 pieces) was burned down along with his home in Ashiya.
The core of Yamamoto Hatsujiro's collection is currently housed at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka. The collection was donated to the city of Osaka by his family in 1983, more than 30 years after his death. The collection numbered 574 items, including paintings, calligraphy, and textiles by artists such as Saeki Yuzo. Upon learning that Osaka City was planning to build a modern art museum as part of its centennial celebrations, Yamamoto Kiyoo, his second son, approached the city on behalf of the family, and proposed the donation.
Nearly 40 years have passed since then. The Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, opened on February 2, 2022, and with a total floor area of approximately 20,000 square meters, it is one of the largest art museums in the Kansai region. During his lifetime, Hatsujiro was passionate about collecting art, and even showed extraordinary attention to detail in the way his collection was displayed. If he were to see the collection on display at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka today, what words would he have?
We will continue to carry on the spirit of Hatsujiro Yamamoto II, who worked energetically to spread the modernism he loved so much, and deliver better products to our customers.