Hakone's Okada Museum Owner to Sell Collection Items to Raise 7.4 Billion Yen for Legal Fees; 125 Works Including Hokusai to Go to Auction
Kazuo Okada, founder of the Okada Museum, is selling 125 collection items, including Hokusai's 'The Great Wave,' to cover 7.4 billion yen in legal fees.Summary
Kazuo Okada, the 83-year-old founder of the private Okada Museum in Hakone, Japan, is selling part of his collection to cover $50 million (approximately 7.4 billion yen) in legal fees stemming from a lawsuit against casino mogul Steve Wynn. Sotheby's Hong Kong will auction 125 pieces from his collection on November 22, featuring Katsushika Hokusai's renowned woodblock print, 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa' (c. 1830–32). Okada, who amassed his fortune through pachislot machines and chairs Universal Entertainment, established the museum in 2013 to display his extensive collection of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean art. The need for the sale arises after Okada lost an arbitration ruling regarding the legal fees charged by his former law firm, which represented him in the dispute with Wynn over the co-founding and subsequent buyout of Wynn Resorts. The items consigned for sale, reportedly under a 'Hong Kong court order,' also include a rare Qianlong-era 'Eight Treasures' vase and a 16th-century Kano Motonobu folding screen, with some expected to fetch hundreds of millions of yen. Sotheby's described the offering as one of the finest collections spanning 3,000 years of East Asian ceramics, crafts, and paintings.
(Source：ARTnews JAPAN)