Scott Reyburn sat down with the Rachofsky’s in Switzerland to hear more about what they’re buying and where they think the market is going. After an obligatory blessing of the market’s growth, Rachofsky affirmed his belief that there are many market opportunities both in established and younger artists—”He owns paintings by Polke, Marlene Dumas and Luc Tuymans, as well as pieces by Richard Aldrich, Katy Moran and Jacob Kassay.”

In the last four years, they’ve been buying Japanese postwar art, amassing what Howard calls a “definitive” collection of as many as 100 pieces by artists such as Shiraga, Saburo Murakami and Shozo Shimamoto.

“Japanese postwar is an undervalued area of the market,” he says. “Our primary concern isn’t financial. There’s a whole evolution of thinking right now about mid-20th-century art movements and we’re trying to be part of the dialogue.”

Curators, dealers and collectors are ahead of the auction houses in rediscovering Japan’s 1950s and ’60s avant-garde.

The Gutai group was the subject of a recent survey at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The Belgium-based dealer Axel Vervoordt sold an abstract by Shiraga — who painted with his feet — to a Swiss collector for 1.2 million euros ($1.6 million) at the Dutch Tefaf art fair in March.

The Rachofskys are currently showing the exhibition “Parallel Views,” exploring the relationship between Japanese art and Arte Povera, in their Texas warehouse space.

Now’s Best Time to Buy Art, Collector Rachofsky Says (Bloomberg)