NORMAN H. TOLMAN

July 12, 1936 – January 15, 2025

It is with great sadness that we write to share that our beloved father, grandfather, husband, and the esteemed co-founder of The Tolman Collection, died January 15th.

Born in a small Massachusetts town and primarily raised by his older sister, there was nothing in Norman Tolman’s childhood that foretold the life that he felt so supremely grateful to have lived, and that he made happen through the sheer force of his will. A first visit while in the Air Force during the Korean War spiked an interest in Japan in general, and language studies at Yale and Berkeley, as well as a Title VI NDEA Fellowship to study in Japan, opened his eyes to his gift for languages and deepened his love for Asia. Various NSA and foreign service postings eventually led him to settle his family permanently in Japan, the adoptive country that he loved.

The Tolman Collection was independently founded in 1972 with six prints from the Tolman family’s fledgling personal art collection offered for sale. Mary and Norman Tolman launched the company, determined to bring contemporary Japanese prints to the world's attention. Norman’s passion for Japanese contemporary art, his admiration and fondness for its creators, and his unwavering belief that the work that they made was unrivaled and needed to be widely seen, that made the Tolman Collection of Tokyo the world’s largest publisher of Japanese prints. He was prouder of each and every one of the Tolman Collection’s artists’ accomplishments than they were themselves and thrilled to be a mentor and friend to so many of them. He loved what he did, the people he worked with, and the people that he got to spend time with while he did so – all of you.

There are many reasons for those of you reading this to remember Norman – his love of a good anecdote, his quick wit, his innate decency and kindness, his unquenchable lust for life, his warmth of spirit and generosity with both time and money, the artwork that you have hanging on your living room wall by an artist that you would not have discovered without his guidance, the generous donation of art that he made to the museum where you are a curator or docent, the financial help or present that he gave you just when you needed it, without thinking of a return.

We, his family, including his gallery family (though he personally never made the distinction), will hold all those attributes close in our hearts, but will also remember his glee at stumping taxi drivers with a kanji they didn’t recognize while happily writing it in the air for them, his delight whenever given the opportunity to speak Chinese, his capacity to make us laugh through jokes, puns and accent mashups, his need to rearrange the furniture in our houses upon each visit so that each room always looked its best, his joy at gift giving, especially luxurious trips and Issey Miyake clothes, and his imagination, inventiveness, cleverness, and sense of fun, both at work and at home.

More importantly, we will remember how cherished he made us feel. He provided some of us with amazing life-changing careers, others with outstanding moral and educational foundations on which to build our lives, all of us with unforgettable experiences, opportunities, and memories. He supported us always and truly believed that there was nothing that we could not accomplish once we set our minds to it. No one will ever again have the faith in us that he steadfastly had, nor love us quite as deeply. We hope that we made him proud; he always said that we did.

Daddy, G-pa, Shacho, Norman -- Dinner parties in Heaven and God’s art collection will surely be much improved by your larger-than-life presence, but your absence here on earth will long remain a source of deep sorrow for those whom you have left behind.

Please take the time today to raise a glass to the memory of Norman Tolman. He was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life.

                                                                            Allison Tolman

Hilary Tolman

Lucas Martineau

Mary Tolman

Eiji Nagao

Daisuke Maruoka

Sachie Maruoka

Shin Mochizuki

Kiyoyuki Fukuda

Goun Sekiya

January 15, 2025