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| Tezuka Katsuyoshi and his black cat in the Cat gallery - Photo: Thanh Hang |
Tezuka has spent 15 years living in Vietnam collecting Vietnamese works of art by the old painters, like Luong Xuan Nhi, Nguyen Sang or Nguyen Gia Tri. His four storey private gallery called Cat houses thousands of paintings and he attests to a strong affinity with them. “I must look at the paintings before I can go to bed. I must look at the paintings before I can go to sleep. I must look at the paintings before I can get drunk.”
What the gallery on Dong Khoi Street lacks in glitz it makes up for with the calm atmosphere of the East. The old paintings depict the slow pace of life of bygone days in Vietnam. They seem to communicate with us in a language lost to the rush of modern life. Asked why he feels such a deep affection with these old paintings, Tezuka answered that he was simply taken by their beauty. Love doesn’t need an explanation, he said.
Tezuka started his collection with no business aspirations – he kept his whole collection in a private storehouse and never showed it to anyone. He was satisfied to enjoy the paintings all alone, but that changed when he decided to open the gallery to the public in early 2010, as he was starting to feel old. None of the paintings in Cat gallery carries a price tag. Any customer who wants to buy one must agree on a price with Tezuka.
Sitting on a Vietnamese traditional bed, stroking a black cat and listening to the tropical storm outside, the old Japanese man rarely more than half-opened his eyes. Though he didn’t say a lot, he didn’t need to, to express the devotion he has to the paintings of Vietnam’s modern masters.
