青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

“A collector of madness and decorum”: that was how one television documentary characterized the entrepreneur, tea connoisseur, and art collector Eiichi Ataka (1901–1994). Guided by his unerring sense of beauty—a sense unfettered by conventional evaluations of ceramics as tea-ceremony utensils, objects of appreciation, or antiques—Ataka gave shape to a collection that is fabled around the world. Less known, meanwhile, is the story of how, following the bankruptcy of Ataka’s firm in the 1970s, the Sumitomo Group saved his world-class collection from dispersal by donating it to the city of Osaka and helping to found the Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka, as its new home.

This catalogue marks the first-ever exhibition of the Ataka Collection to be held at the Sen-Oku Hakukokan Museum, which houses and exhibits the artworks of the Sumitomo family. The book presents 101 carefully selected ceramics—including two National Treasures and eleven Important Cultural Properties—out of a total of some 1,000 pieces, along with a discussion by two key figures behind the 1970s transfer of ownership that gives an insider look into how this miraculous collection has been able to endure to this day.