Ofer Shagan Collection Introduction & History

Ofer Shagan Collection (Introduction, history and 118 video playlist of the collection)

 A man of many hats, Ofer Shagan has lived 27 years in Japan, establishing a number of successful companies. Presently, he concentrates his time on a development project in the South Pacific paradise of Vanuatu, where he received the title of Chief on the island of Malekula in 2005 and serves its government as a diplomat and political advisor.

Following his childhood love of art and antiquities, he has been a dealer in antique art, with four galleries in Tokyo. His extensive collections, mainly from South-East Asia, India, Mongolia, Vanuatu and Japan, have been displayed in highly respected museums, including the Azabu Museum and Shoto Museum in Tokyo. Mr. Shagan has authored several books, including Mudmee Ikat of Thailand (Art Digest, 1999) and South East Asian Art and History (Ribunsha, 2000), and over a hundred articles in periodicals concerning history, culture and art, including extensive works about shunga. He donates regularly to several museums, especially The Israel Museum and the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, as well as to the British Museum and The National Museum of Vanuatu, and has himself been the subject of over three hundred articles in different contexts.

Mr. Shagan’s extraordinary shunga collection of over 9,000(of around 50.000 images) items has been exhibited in 2005 at The Israel Museum and in 2009 at the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art, with others exhibitions scheduled for Europe and the United States. The Japanese-language edition of this book (Heibonsha, 2011) was a great success, attracting much media attention from a wide variety of diverse sources, including popular magazines aimed variously at young women, men and fine art enthusiasts, and led to Mr. Shagan’s weekly column on shunga in Nikkan Gendai, a newspaper with daily circulation of 1.2 million.his next book "japanese erotic art" (2013 thames & hadson) published in english and was translated to French  (hazan 2014).  his next book waraii shunga (asahi,2014), become 3rd in book sells in japan. His rapidly growing collection is currently the subject of various research by the leading Japanese scholars of shunga. One of his life objectives is to spread knowledge of shunga and change its image in the world, especially in Japan.

Below are several video's by Ofer on specific subjects;

118 You Tube Video Playlist of his collection