MANEKI NEKO

2011. 115 pages.  81 color photographs by Lynton Gardiner, Alan Scott Pate and Anthony Scoggins.  Foreword by Rob Sidner, Director. Introduction to the Billie Moffit Collection by Alan Scott Pate, Author.

The first major work in any language about a beguiling facet of Japanese folk art, this book reveals the origins, history, lore and meaning of these alluring and enigmatically artful felines. With superb photographs and scholarly but accessible text by Alan Scott Pate, this book highlights the most important museum collection of Maneki Neko in the United States.

FOREWORD
Rob Sidner
Director

One of the special pleasures for me of working at Mingei International Museum is meeting collectors, especially those who help the permanent collection grow in depth and breadth with their generous donations. Collectors are fascinating people. Often entertaining with their thrill-of-the-hunt tales, they are usually distinctive personalities as well. Many of them admit, freely and only slightly ironically, that collecting is their delightful obsession.

Of the unusual personal collections I’ve encountered in 17 seventeen years at this Museum, the one presented here of Japanese beckoning cats is among the most offbeat yet entirely beguiling. This Museum is deeply grateful to Billie Moffitt for her generous gift of these alluringly and enigmatically artful felines. Japanese arts of daily life (pottery,lacquer, wood, metal, textiles, shop signs, dolls, toys and ceremonial objects) have long been a signature holding of Mingei International’s collection. These maneki neko, a whimsical collection within a collection, form, what is likely the largest one of its kind outside Japan. The collection adds further distinction and luster to the Museum’s permanent collection of more than twenty thousand objects of folk art, craft and design from 141 countries.

Billie Moffit came to Mingei International and offered us her collection courtesy of Alan Scott Pate, longtime friend of the Museum. International authority on traditional dolls of Japan and author of two books on the subject, Alan in 2005 was guest curator of for the Museum’s exhibition, NINGYŌ The Art of the Japanese Doll. With the Museum’s decision to accept this collection and publish a book featuring it, a decision quickly followed to invite Alan to be its author. Not only capable of doing the research and writing a museum-worthy and accessible text, Alan willingly and generously took on this new and demanding project.

A major donor to Mingei International since 1995, the Akaloa Resource Foundation has generously funded the production of this book.

To these generous collaborators and to the book’s production team go sincere thanks for bringing this book into existence as the latest expression of Mingei International Museum’s mission of “fostering understanding and appreciation of ‘art of the people’ (mingei) from all eras and cultures of the world.”

THE BILLIE MOFFIT COLLECTION OF MANEKI NEKO
Alan Scott Pate

The humble beckoning cat of Japan is both universally recognized and woefully misunderstood. Distinctly Japanese in form and origin, its seemingly ubiquitous presence in Chinese restaurants and business establishments today has led many to believe that the “lucky cat” is actually a Chinese phenomenon. The beckoning cat, or maneki neko as it is called in Japanese, is both a reflection of contemporary tastes and aspirations for wealth and good fortune as well as a holdover from talismanic practices dating back to the seventh century. Part icon, part kitsch, part talisman, the maneki neko is as mysterious as it is familiar.

Spotted in isolation, resting atop a cash register in a restaurant here, or occupying a respected niche in a home there, it is difficult to grasp the depth and complexity of this familiar figure. The image of a seated cat with its paw raised is deceptively simple. Behind the welcoming facade of the maneki neko rest layers of beliefs and practices that have shaped not only its outward form but also the plethora of meanings associated with it. Over a millennium of growth has added a rich cultural patina to the maneki neko.

The Billie Moffit Collection of maneki neko consists of some one hundred fifty-five examples. Representing a wide variety of media, from stone to iron, from wood to papier-mache, the collection presents an opportunity to explore in depth the world of the maneki neko. Whether examining in detail a unique example wrought in hand-pounded copper or gazing upon a group of over sixty similarly fashioned pieces of Seto porcelain, the viewer cannot help but become aware that there is much more here than meets the eye.

For Billie Moffit the collection began innocently enough. The gift of a maneki neko bank from her mother more than twenty-five years ago was transformed into a collecting passion when she encountered a group of fine porcelain maneki neko in an antique shop some time later. As with many collectors, it was love at first sight. Over the intervening years, Billie amassed what is arguably the finest and most diverse collection of maneki neko outside Japan. She is quick to clarify that she did not collect “cat sculptures.” Many a well intentioned friend or acquaintance made the mistake of offering her a cat figurine. Though cute, though well done, it was not figures of cats that captured her collecting interests. It was singularly the maneki neko, the seated cat with its paw raised, that beckoned Billie Moffit.

Through a dogged diligence fueled by a passion for the form and a seeming inability to let pass any representation that did not already have a place in her burgeoning collection, Billie Moffit assembled a remarkable array of maneki neko. Spanning most regions in Japan, media types, and sizes, and ranging from the Lilliputian to the Brobdingnagian, her collection opens a window on an unusual and fascinating world that combines history, legend, technology, economics, superstition and art.

The gift of the Billie Moffit collection of maneki neko to Mingei International Museum has created an opportunity for the public to share the fascination and delight of this important collection. Billie Moffit’s gift, combined with maneki neko already in Mingei International Museum’s permanent collection, will give future generations the ability to explore, learn about, and gain appreciation for this unique expression of Japanese folk art and culture.