Meet Martha Tepper Takayama of Tepper TakayamaFine Arts in Back Bay

Today we’d like to introduce you to Martha Tepper Takayama.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’m a Bostonian who has traveled a fair amount of the world and has benefited personally and professionally from my travels and foreign contacts, yet I always return to my beloved Boston, where my gallery is located and where I live. Brazilian friends introduced me to my Japanese husband, a musician, and the impact of my international contacts has influenced the direction of my gallery, Tepper Takayama Fine Arts.

In spite of a serious educational grounding in government history and a facility at picking up languages–I speak Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, French, Italian, and Japanese–I have always also been fascinated by the arts, fashion, politics and am an avid reader and social media follower and participant on Twitter and Instagram. I have a BA in History and Government from Boston University; have taken graduate courses in those subjects here and abroad–I studied at the Sorbonne in Paris –and earned a Master of Arts in Spanish and education from Boston College.

Prior to founding Tepper Takayama Fine Arts, I was an Assistant Trade Commissioner for the Italian Trade Commission and served as Director of YSL Rive Gauche at Saks Fifth Avenue, both in Boston. I spent a number of years as in-house government interpreter and translator, primarily in criminal and civil legal proceedings, mostly in Spanish, and Portuguese. I was also in charge of interpreters for other languages including Haitian Creole, Chinese, and Cambodian for government organizations.

I got my start as a gallery owner in a circuitous way. Two regional innovative artists, determining that I had a “good eye” and enthusiasm for the subject and their work, asked me to represent them. I naively agreed to present slides of their oversized panels to a bewildered senior officer of the East Cambridge Savings Bank who graciously explained to me that he was looking for imagery of the construction of the local railroad–not the pictures of experimental abstract works that I showed him. But I was intrigued.

While continuing to work in multilingual environments I pursued my interest in art, presenting the work of emerging artists to museums. Although sometimes interested in the artwork, the institutions were not prepared to acquire any of it at first. I had some success with collectors and gave private receptions at my family’s home, hanging works of the artists I represented in our public rooms. My intense interest in the work of a New York-based Japanese painter and printmaker Massaki Sato, singled out by The New York Times at the time of our country’s Bicentennial, enabled me to offer his prints.

After seeing his powerful subway series I was determined to see his paintings in person. I made a pilgrimage to New York to meet him and see the works in his studio. That was the beginning of an ongoing relationship. I acquired several prints for myself and some to offer as a gallerist. I presented to my clients only what I considered first quality work of any artist I engaged. I selected prime examples from museums or collectors. The process and development of directing an art gallery have been one of constant learning. I am basically very curious. My reading, foreign languages, and political concerns all resulted in my seeking out artists from many different places.

Through a web of overlapping interests and with the help of many friends, scholars, curators, and immeasurable assistance from my husband and Brazilian niece and nephew, I came to engage with major figures in the international art world. For a long time, the gallery concentrated on painting, drawing, printmaking and to a small extent sculpture. In the 1990’s, when plot-less video and less accomplished painting seemed prevalent, and after being dazzled by photographic work in Brazil, I turned the focus of the gallery almost exclusively to photography.

I have to thank myriad people for all the mundane and the erudite. exposure and learning that I have benefited from.

However, Herbert Fox of Fox Graphics, MA, Deborah Martin Kao former Curator of the Havard University Art Museums, Michelle Lamuniere, Former Asst Curator of the Harvard University Art Museums and now photography Specialist at Skinner’s, Teresa Schmittroth artist and Editor of Art in Context Center for Communications, Sarah Callahan Lenis Curator, Scholar and benefactor of the arts, Barbara Hitchcock independent curator and scholar, former Cultural Affairs Director of Polaroid Corporation, Pavalos Satoglou, Editor of “Antilipseis ” Greek Photography magazine, Photographer and Instructor, Jeanne-Marie Reiss Byington of J M Byington and Associates, a public relations sage, Marcello Barreto Araujo, Author and Graphic Designer, and Dr. Cecelia Nicolai, Epidemiologist and photographer.

I am especially grateful for the knowledge cooperation and friendship of legendary photographers Laurent Elie, Badessi, Daido Moriyama, Rogerio Reis, Shomei Tomatsu, Yasuko Tomatsu, Evandro Teixeira, and many others.

Has it been a smooth road?
One encounters a myriad variety of personalities, temperaments, and talents conducting this type of work. Perhaps the most difficult aspect is generating interest in unknown or lesser know artists or work and broadening the concept of a contemporary art.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Tepper Takayama Fine Arts specializes in post World War II through 21st-century fine art, principally photography including documentary, narrative, conceptual, semi-abstract and abstract imagery.

The gallery collaborates with an international roster of widely acclaimed to emerging artists representing a variety of techniques ranging from traditional platinum and gelatin silver prints, drawings, mixed media, and digitally processed works, limited edition graphics and paintings.

Services include curatorial and collections assistance, multilingual consulting and research assistance in English, French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish as well as writing, translating and editing of art-related descriptive and critical material. A selection of hard to find books by or about gallery artists is available.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Boston is a proud historic ethnically diverse city enriched by academia, political activity, cultural institutions and humor. Our local accents are easily identifiable, but very hard to reproduce in the movies. Boston is also a city undergoing dynamic and rapid change.

Our population increases every August through June by an astonishing influx of students from all over the country and the world. We are a hospital and health care center and a constantly expanding center for medical, scientific and technological development.

Bostonians, however, are more cautious and less materialistic than other American cities.

Contact Info:

• Address: 20 Park Plaza, Ste. 600 Boston, MA 02116
• Website: www.teppertakayamafinearts.com
• Email: takayama.martha@gmail.com
• Phone: 617-542-0557; 617-542-0607 (fax); 617-650-8985 (cell)
• Instagram: @TepperTakayamaFineArts

Image Credit:
Daido Moriyama, Masaaki Sato, Laurent Elie Badessi, Laurent Elie Badessi, Rogerio Reis, Evandro Teixeira, Shomei Tomatsu

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