Artful dodges
Sir: Reading the admirable Auberon Waugh on saleroom madness (8 October) I am struck by the difference in the Japanese approach. Japanese wealth does not seek to excuse itself or perpetuate itself in Foundations, paying exaggerated prices for junk (Pollock, Warhol etc). Money is used
LETTERS
to make money. The insurance company which bought the Van Gogh last year has calculated that visitors to its art museum, at Y2,000 a time, will pay for the painting in six years; the company will then have the painting, its purchase price back in the bank and a source of income for ever. The newly renovated Kyoto Cultural Museum (admission Y500 for adults, Y400 for stu- dents) contains 26 shops selling traditional sweets, dolls, incense and fans, not to speak of Edo-era rice, charcoal and sake. Thin, miserable vegetarians will soon re- pay the Y8.2 billion it cost to put the museum back in business.
A Mrs Chieko Hasegawa runs the world's largest art dealership — the Galer- ie Nichido in the Ginza; she has half a dozen galleries in Japan, one each in Paris and New York. She has just published a book of her interviews with such as Miro, Chagall and Dali, but she will not be bidding for the American junk at Chris- tie's; her guide to good taste is the North Rhine Westphalian Art Museum in Dfissel- dorf not too large, not too small' and, of course profitable. If only 'the Arts Council and other malign institutions' could be suppressed, the danger of a newly wealthy Britain following the American example could be averted.
Roy MacGregor-Hastie
Osaka Gakuin University, Kishibe Suita, Osaka
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