ISRAEL (BETTER KNOWN AS IZZY) GOLDMAN is one of the world’s foremost dealers in the field of Japanese prints, paintings and illustrated books. He developed a love of Japanese art at an early age, purchasing his first print in London at the age of eleven. He launched his career as a dealer after graduating from Harvard College in 1981.

Izzy became an Associate Director of the Ukiyo-e Print Dealer’s Association of Japan in 1988 and was a founding member of the International Fine Print Dealer’s Association (IFPDA). He is also a director of the International Ukiyo-e Society of Japan. He has exhibited at the Print Fair in New York and Frieze Masters in London.

Izzy sells to private collectors and museums all over the world, including such institutions as the Art Institute of Chicago, the British Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, the National Gallery of Australia, the New York Public Library, and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Izzy is the co-author of Hiroshige, Birds and Flowers, George Brazziler, New York, 1988. He is also a leading authority on Kawanabe Kyosai and has curated three exhibitions of the artist’s work in Tokyo—at the Odakyu Department Store in 1996; the Ota Memorial Museum in 2002; and the Bunkamura Museum of Art in 2017.

Izzy negotiated the sale of the Gerhard Pulverer Collection of nearly one thousand Japanese illustrated books to the Freer/Sackler Museum in 2007. Both in size and value, this represents one of the most extensive collections of Japanese graphic art to be sold in the West in living memory.

Izzy was instrumental in organizing the gift to the British Museum of approximately two thousand prints by Kuniyoshi from the collection of Professor Arthur R. Miller. Subsequently, Izzy was a guest curator of the Kuniyoshi exhibition held in celebration of this gift at the Royal Academy, London in 2009 and at the Japan Society Gallery, New York, in 2010.

In 2013 Izzy sold the Arthur and Charlotte Vershbow Collection of Japanese illustrated books to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

An impression of Hokusai’s Great Wave, which Izzy sold to the British Museum is considered their most important Japanese print. It was chosen for the BBC program, A History of the World in 100 Objects, and was also the centrepiece of the exhibition, Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave, held at the museum in 2017.

In 2019, Izzy bought a highly important group of 103 original drawings by Katsushika Hokusai. Sold to the British Museum in 2020, they have been acclaimed by scholars as one of the most important Hokusai discoveries in recent years.

In 2022, The Royal Academy held the exhibition, Kyōsai: The Israel Goldman Collection which featured selected highlights from Izzy’s personal collection. The exhibition was sponsored by the Embassy of Japan and was very favourable received with numerous press reviews and online lectures.
See some reviews here: www.israelgoldman.com/press.html

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