August 11, 1991
Enclosed for your information is a copy of a magazine article on
the ruling patriarch of the Daishowa clan.
One's reminded of the rulers of ancient societies who took wives,
servants and other possessions with them when they died.
The challenge is to see if it's possible to make such creatures
at all responsive to the needs and concerns of mere mortals.
* * * * *
re-printed without permission from NEWSWEEK Magazine, May 27,
1991
ASHES TO ASHES, BUT NOT WITH YOUR VAN GOGH
The French don't have the world's greatest sense of humor.
Certainly no one was laughing last week after Japanese
industrialist Ryoei Saito suggested his plans for the two most
famous paintings in his vast collection: van Gogh's "Portrait of
Dr. Gachet" and Renoir's "Le Moulin de la Galette," which cost
him a total of $160.6 million just last year. "Put those
paintings in my coffin, to be cremated with me," said Saito.
He might as well have proposed turning the Tour d'Argent into a
sushi bar. The staid daily Le Figaro splashed SCANDAL across its
front page. The director of French museums huffed that "even the
most pharaohesque of pharaohs took care of the art works that
were buried with them." More explicit Japan-bashing came from
the Tribune de Geneve, a Swiss daily: "Masterpieces in Peril --
the Yellow Peril," ran the caption below its cartoon of a
bucktoothed Asian man tossing paintings into an open coffin.
Saito, 75, the honorary chairman of Daishowa Paper Manufacturing
Co., couldn't understand all the ruckus. "What I really wanted
to (express)," he said, "was my wish to preserve the paintings
forever." Saito, his aides explained, was using a figure of
speech: threatening to torch the oils was just an expression of
intense affection for the masterpieces. Later, Saito said he
would consider giving the paintings to his government or a
museum.