Japanese Firm Builds Rothko Alliance Amid Sale Pressure

In 2024, Japanese chemical company DIC Corporation announced that its board of directors had decided to “downsize and relocate” the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, an institution it owns in the city of Sakura, 25 miles northeast of Tokyo.

Earlier that year, I reported that the company, which is severely in debt, was reevaluating the future of the museum. In 2025, the board eventually decided to move the museum, which is temporarily closed, to the International House of Japan (IHJ), a private members club in Tokyo.

Built in 1990, the museum’s collection boasted 754 artworks, 384 of which are owned by DIC Corp. Amid pressure from Hong-Kong based Oasis Management, an activist fund that is a major shareholder in DIC Corp, the company sold 18 masterworks by artists including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse and Henry Moore at Christie’s New York at the end of last year. Monet’s iconic 1907 Nymphéas was the top lot, selling for $45.48 million, while the total generated was almost $110 million. DIC Corp eventually plans to sell 25 percent of the 384 works it owns in the museum.

Oasis, which does not publicly declare its assets under management, has initiated high-profile campaigns against several Japanese firms in recent years. The fund has demanded changes at each company. “Our best allies are domestic asset managers who today see bad corporate governance as shameful,” said Seth Fischer, Oasis’ founder and chief investment officer. 

The crown jewels in DIC Corp’s collection are seven of Mark Rothko’s coveted Seagram Murals. It plans to hang onto these paintings, as well as major works by Jackson Pollock, Frank Stella and Cy Twombly. The auction record for a Seagram Mural, of which 30 exist, is $85.8 million. It was sold this year at Sotheby’s New York. The total isn’t far off Rothko’s auction record: $98.4 million for his 1964 work No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe). 

In February, DIC Corp and IHJ announced a partnership with the Rothko Chapel, a non-denominational chapel in Houston displaying 14 works by Rothko. Founded in 1971 by American collectors John and Dominique de Menil, it is one of the foremost authorities on Rothko's artistic legacy. The de Menils commissioned the late artist to create the paintings, and it remains one of the most important sites for understanding his late work. Rothko died one year before the chapel opened.

The planned move to IHJ won’t be completed until 2030. Against the backdrop of pressure from Oasis, the partnership raises questions about whether DIC Corp is creating a long-term institutional framework around the Rothko works that could make their eventual sale less likely.

Complicating the move is the fact that Oasis has publicly slammed the relocation as “highly inappropriate.” It claimed IHJ has “close ties” to Yoshihisa Kawamura, DIC Corp’s chairman, and accused DIC Corp of attempting to “deprive shareholders of their rightful assets [by transferring] wealth and/or control of the assets to an inner circle of people and organizations under Kawamura’s influence.”

The activist fund subsequently urged all DIC Corp shareholders to vote against the company’s CEO and chairman, Takashi Ikeda, who Oasis said “led the series of decision making.” Oasis also encouraged shareholders to vote for its proposal “to amend the articles of incorporation to enhance monitoring of related party transactions.”

DIC Corp said it wants to display the Seagram Murals at IHJ to keep them on public view. “To open DIC's collection to society as cultural assets and pass them on to future generations, we will continue to expand opportunities for viewing our holdings, including the Rothko works, both domestically and internationally during the relocation period until 2030,” it said in a press release in February. “We will advance activities to deliver these cultural assets to a wider audience.”

In February, DIC Corp announced that Sejima and Nishizawa Associates (SANAA), a Tokyo-based architectural firm, will design a “Rothko Room” at IHJ to display the Seagram Murals in its West Wing, which is not yet built. The initial design looks strikingly similar to the Rothko Chapel’s site-specific, immersive setting, where the 14 paintings are hung around the perimeter of the octagonal chapel. They are arranged symmetrically so the viewer is encircled by the paintings.

“Through this joint initiative, DIC and IHJ will collaborate with the Rothko Chapel – widely recognised as a central and symbolic institution dedicated to the legacy of Mark Rothko – to establish a new international cultural network and further advance global cultural exchange and outreach,” DIC stated.

The partnership will see DIC Corp, a chemical manufacturer which plans to launch the Institute of Art Conservation Chemistry (IACC), help restore the Rothko Chapel’s paintings that were damaged during a hurricane in 2024. “DIC and Rothko Chapel have agreed to establish a strategic partnership to support the restoration of the damaged artworks at Rothko Chapel, thereby safeguarding these vital cultural assets,” the press release said. “Moving forward, DIC will provide support leveraging its unique expertise and technology as a chemical manufacturer, including supplying materials required by restorers.”

Relocating the Seagram Murals to IHJ, where they will remain publicly accessible, with support from the Rothko Chapel–whose board includes Rothko's son, Christopher Rothko–appears to provide a measure of protection against their potential sale at the behest of Oasis. If sold at auction, there is a chance that the paintings would be bought privately and removed from public view.

DIC Corp was asked by The Art Journal if its partnership with Rothko Chapel was a strategic move to protect the paintings, but it did not respond. IHJ, Rothko Chapel, and Oasis also chose not to comment.