Robert Ravicz; Cal State Northridge Professor

Robert Ravicz, 72, professor emeritus of anthropology at Cal State Northridge and a noted collector of Japanese art. A native of Minneapolis who held degrees from the University of Texas and Harvard, the Pacific Palisades resident joined the Northridge faculty in 1963. An expert on Mesoamerica, he wrote widely on the Mixtec civilization and later specialized in the Indian subcontinent. In 1968, he began collecting Japanese woodblock-printed picture books, eventually gathering more than 800 titles in one of the largest and most comprehensive such libraries in the world. It was the subject of a 1991 book, “The Japanese Picture Book: A Selection From the Ravicz Collection,” by Jack Hillier. He aided the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Craft and Folk Arts Museum. On July 17 in Pacific Palisades, of pancreatic cancer.