A cum laude graduate of Boston University Medical School, Ralph Marcove (1929-2001) was a pioneer in the field of orthopedic oncology. Over his distinguished 40-year career, he published over 300 articles and authored or co-authored several books relating to bone tumors, receiving numerous awards for his research and clinical treatments.
It was in the 1950s while he served as a physician in the U. S. Air Force in Japan that Dr. Marcove developed a keen interest in East Asian art. Dr. Marcove’s collecting journey brought him into the orbit of such leading Asian art dealers as Warren E. Cox (d. 1977), whom he considered an early mentor, and Roger Buckland Bluett (1925-2000) and Brian Morgan (b. 1930), both of Bluett and Sons, London. By the late 1970s, Dr. Marcove had assembled a sufficiently large and varied collection of Chinese art that in 1981 Yutaka Mino mounted an exhibition drawn from Dr. Marcove’s collection at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Over the following years, Dr. Marcove donated works to many distinguished museums, including Harvard Art Museums, Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the Palmer Museum of Art (Penn State University).