Richard R. Silverman, a world traveler, teacher, and Asian art collector and appraiser, whose donation of Japanese ceramic miniatures to the Toledo Museum of Art created one of the largest public collections of those pieces anywhere, died Tuesday in Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles. He was 87.

He’d had pneumonia and developed sepsis, said Peter Silverman, a nephew.

Mr. Silverman, a Scott High School graduate, grew up in the Old West End, and lived in Bangkok, Tokyo, and in recent decades West Hollywood. He was to be honored next month with a Japanese imperial decoration for promoting the culture.

“When he learned he was getting it, it was the highlight of his life,” his nephew said. 

From the early 1980s onward, he donated his time and expertise to the Toledo Museum of Art — first to study and evaluate its collection of netsuke and then, working with museum curator Kurt Luckner, to install that collection. Netsuke were an accessory for kimono-wearing Japanese men dating back centuries. 

“Richard genuinely loved the Toledo Museum of Art and never forgot the museum after relocating to Los Angeles,” said Roger Berkowitz, former director of the Toledo Museum of Art. 

About a decade ago, Mr. Silverman donated 226 ceramic netsuke — fragile and often finely detailed — to the museum. That created perhaps the largest public collection of those miniature clay pieces, museum officials said.

An exhibit followed in 2010 and 2011, “Life in Miniature: Ceramic Netsuke from the Silverman Collection.” Mr. Silverman, in a personal essay for the catalog, wrote of encountering netsuke as a teacher in Tokyo.

“Most were carved from ivory, wood, and stag antler. The finest were like miniature Michelangelos,” wrote Mr. Silverman.  

He’d collected ceramic pieces of all sorts for years while in Japan.

“Having this great love of ceramics and of netsuke, I was delighted to be able to combine them when I started to find some charming ceramic netsuke, most dating from the nineteenth century,” Mr. Silverman wrote. 

Mr. Silverman promoted the Toledo museum wherever he traveled and believed the museum was where his collection “would make the greatest difference,” said Carolyn Putney, who retired as director of collections, chief curator, and curator of Asian art. In 1985, then-museum director Roger Mandle invited him to join the Council on the Collections, made up of members who advise the museum on acquisitions.

Former director Brian Kennedy first saw netsuke at a museum in his native Dublin, Ms. Putney said, and “was so excited about Richard’s collection and gave it a gallery unto itself.”

Mr. Silverman though not an employee, “was thought of as an extension of the museum staff and proudly wore his ‘staff badge’ whenever he visited TMA,” said Andrea Gardner, the Museum’s director of collections. 

“He told it like it was,” Ms. Putney said. “He liked to tell stories, and he always had this dramatic flair. He made you laugh.”

His nephew said: “He wore his passion on his sleeve, and he had this magnetic personality. He lifted people up.”

He was born May 1, 1932, in Toledo to Rosalyn and Milton Silverman and grew up at the Ann Manor on Scottwood Avenue. He took free Saturday morning art classes at the museum, which “greatly contributed to a wonderful childhood,” he wrote in the netsuke exhibit catalog. 

He was a 1954 graduate of Brandeis University and attended University of Michigan law school and its English language institute, and the University of Toledo. He worked for a time in the family business, Kobacker Furniture Co. on Summit Street, founded by his grandfather and great-uncle and headed by his father, Milton

Army service in Korea introduced him to Asian culture and led to further travels. He spent much of the 1960s and ’70s living and teaching in Asia. He was an Asian art consultant for renowned auction houses and served on boards of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 

He had no immediate survivors.

Services are pending.

First Published November 22, 2019, 5:00 a.m.