An Obsessive Collector Who’s Drawn Royalty to Brooklyn

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Robin Pogrebin
Steven Korff is surrounded by his collection of Japanese ceramics in his Brooklyn home. Credit Dave Sanders for The New York Times
NEW YORK---Put your feet up on the coffee table, and you might knock over those pieces by Kakurezaki Ryuichi and Mori Togaku, or that vase by Matsui Kosei. Splash around in the upstairs bathtub, and you’re likely to spray water on the sculptures to your left or your right by some of Japan’s most influential 20th-century ceramic artists. This simple house in Flatbush, Brooklyn, is not only where Steven Korff and Marcia Van Wagner, a married couple, raised their two boys — now 18 and 21 — but where Mr. Korff keeps the more than 400 sculptural vases, bowls, sake cups and flasks that have quietly made him one of the leading collectors in contemporary Japanese ceramics. [link]

Ceramics in Mr. Korff’s dining room. Credit Dave Sanders for The New York Times
Ken Price’s “Pink Egg,” which Mr. Korff sold at auction for $509,000. Credit via Phillips