We are saddened to share that Howard Rogers passed away peacefully on Monday, October 20, at his beloved home on the Big Island of Hawai’i, surrounded by family and friends. Howard was an original thinker and led an amazingly versatile and adventuresome life. He always said he wanted to have three careers, and he actually achieved that wish. First, he became a teacher and was a professor of art history at Sofia University in Tokyo, where he trained many students, a number of whom went on to make stellar contributions to our field, while many other young scholars came under his wing, benefiting from his warm spirit and generosity in numerous ways. Secondly, he became a great art dealer—much to the consternation of his academic friends. In concert with Mary Ann Rogers, he founded Kaikodo while living in Kita-Kamakura in Japan, later establishing a breathtakingly beautiful gallery in New York City and producing the masterful Kaikodo Journal. Thirdly, he attained his dream to own a restaurant—a natural fit for Howard, who simply loved to cook and eat, who hosted legendary parties at the townhouse on 64th Street in the late 20th and early 21st century, and who then established a restaurant in Hilo known not only for its cuisine but for the extraordinary Asian art that served as its décor.

Howard’s contributions to the field of Chinese painting are wide-reaching and deep, including his contributions to museum exhibitions and his Kaikodo Journal studies on individual paintings and essays on the lives of Chinese painters, following in the footsteps of Vasari. His deep knowledge of Chinese painting is reflected in his “files”—consisting of voluminous hand-written cards on every Chinese painting he had ever seen, combined with every record he could lay his hands on, ranging from historic Chinese sources all the way to contemporary auction catalogues.

Howard will be missed not only by those in the Chinese painting field but by all who knew him as a generous and optimistic mentor and friend.