Public money has been spent on a large scale in Japan to reduce the debts incurred by many banks with several museums actively buying Western art pieces acquired by Japanese firms at exorbitant prices in the 1980's when the at market was at its peak. These firms had to mortgage hundreds of paintings, mainly by Impressionist masters, which served as guarantees with several banks to which they owed huge sums of money.
The Nihon Kezai daily lashed at Japanese authorities for spending public money to allow museums to acquire such pieces.
It said that the Museum of Ehime, due to be inaugurated in November 1998 in Matsuyama had acquired for 230 million yens a portrait by Bonnard which had been purchased by Mr Tsurumaki, a small businessman who had later turned into a crack speculator and who also made the headlines when he took possession for over US $ 50 million (7,5 billion yens) of Picasso's «Les Noces de Pierrette» painted at the turn of the century before his Autopolis Japan Company went bankrupt with debts reaching 90 billion yens.
The Contemporary Art museum of Tokyo, inaugurated in 1995, also acquired a work by German artist Anselm Kiefer «Icarius» which was previously in the collection of the Tokyo Kyowa Kumiai Associative Credit Bank which was largely responsible for the bankrupcy of one of the most important Japanese banks, the LTCB which had recovered the paintings as part of the remaining assets of the Tokyo Kyowa.
There are some 10,000 paintings stacked in the warehouses of several banking institutions. They have been estimated at about 1000 billion yens and as long as these will not find some proper owners the Japanese market will continue to remain in a state of total confusion.
There are 318 State-owned museums in Japan as as many private institutions and to resort to public money in order to find a suitable destination for so many art pieces is a hazardous task as part of the salvaging policy of Japanese banks, the daily stressed.
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