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PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF CATHERINE HALFF EDSON Catherine (Kay) Halff Edson (1938-2010) was the descendant of two pioneering brothers from Alsace who settled in San Antonio shortly after Texas joined the Union. They operated huge ranches and herded cattle on the fabled Chisholm Trail between South Texas and Dodge City, Kansas. Kay spent her life in San Antonio, where her father's uncle, Godcheaux A. C. Halff, founded WOAI Radio, one of the first broadcasting stations in the United States, in 1922; her father owned and operated WOAI Radio and WOAI-TV. One of WOAI's greatest achievements was a regular Sunday broadcast Musical Interpretations, featuring the conductor of the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra. Kay went to Vassar College and the University of Texas at Austin. Growing up in San Antonio, she did not have much exposure to Japanese art. In the sixties, her mother, who is said to have collected Japanese porcelain, purchased a new house and found a pair of Japanese screens that had been built in by the architect. These turned out to be an important pair of seventeenth-century, Sumiyoshi-school six-panel screens of the Tales of Ise. Kay gave them to the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) in her mother's memory in 1995. A board member and strong supporter of the museum, Kay, with her brother, also oversaw the Halff Foundation, which gives to a multitude of local charities. Kay's purchases of Japanese art began modestly. Attracted from the start by the technical skills of Japan's artisans of the late nineteenth century, she began by acquiring cloisonné enamelwork, lacquer and Satsuma-style ceramics, especially those with bird-and-flower motifs. Soon, her interests broadened to paintings on the same theme. Encouraged by James Godfrey, at the time the curator of Asian Art at SAMA, her knowledge and experience grew, as did the size of her collection. She began bidding at auctions in New York, San Francisco and London during the late seventies and eighties--the so-called bubble period for the Japanese art market. Prices rose rapidly, and important examples of Japanese art were abundant at auction. Kay and her husband, Thomas Edson, fully participated in that market, purchasing mainly lacquers, but also some paintings. In 1984, their substantial collection was shown at SAMA, the Phoenix Art Museum and The Minneapolis Institute of Arts in an exhibition organized by Godfrey. In 1994, Kay and Tom traveled to Japan on a tour of famous sites and museums organized by Amy Poster, then curator of Asian Art at the Brooklyn Museum. They met with prominent art dealers, discovered new facets of Japanese taste and culture and acquired a number of lacquers from the Momoyama and early Edo periods, which were included in "Turning Point: Oribe and the Arts of Sixteenth-Century Japan," a groundbreaking exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 2003. After their return from Japan, the Edsons felt confident of their own abilities to explore their chosen field. They went on to acquire fine paintings by Tani Buncho (1763-1840), Nagasawa Rosetsu (1754-1799) and Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800), as well as a group of paintings of the ukiyo-e school. In addition, they bought important sets of Edo-period writing and document boxes. Their affinity for both painting and lacquer led the couple inevitably to focus on the work of the great lacquer artist and painter Zeshin, which is where Kay Edson made her mark. Zeshin offered everything that Kay was looking for. A prolific, whimsical and ingenious master of a difficult and time-consuming medium, Zeshin's lacquer career extended from the late Edo period into the Meiji period. Kay's close friends thought that Japanese lacquer--subtle and quiet--suited her reserved personality. In 2007, Kay had the satisfaction of seeing her Zeshin collection, which had evolved into one the most important in private hands, exhibited at SAMA. "Zeshin: The Catherine and Thomas Edson Collection," organized by Sebastian Izzard, also traveled to The Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Japan Society Gallery, New York. In 2009, the Edson lacquers returned to Japan to join examples gathered from Japanese museums in the exhibition "Edo Chic/Meiji Technique: The Art of Shibata Zeshin" featuring the Edson Collection, organized by Yasumura Toshinobu, director of the Itabashi Museum of Art. The works were shown in Tokyo, Kyoto and Toyama. By then, Kay was too ill to make the trip, but she took immense pleasure during those last months of her life in hearing about the enthusiastic reception of Zeshin by Japanese audiences. Adapted from Sebastian Izzard, "Catherine Halff Edson (1938-2010): Remembering an Esteemed Collector," Impressions, Journal of the Japanese Art Society of America, 32 (2011): 177-79.

A group of various netsuke **

EDO PERIOD (18TH-19TH CENTURY)

Details

A group of various netsuke **
Edo period (18th-19th century)
An ivory netsuke of a dragonfly on a gong, signed Masaaki--1 5/8in. (4.2cm.) wide; a pierced ivory netsuke decorated with chrysanthemums--1¼in. (3.2cm.) wide; a stag antler netsuke of the twelve animal symbols of the zodiac, signed Tomokazu--1¾in. (4.4cm.) wide; an ivory netsuke of a lion-dog holding a brocade ball, with signature Shuzan--2in. (5.1cm.) high (4)

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