The Richard Gervais Collection is home based in San Francisco, California and is a long standing reliable resource for unique collectibles and art, available to the public and the wholesale trade community of interior designers, decorators, landscape architects, gardeners and collectors. The collection consists of a myriad of country, ethnic, primitive and folk art, antiquities, artifacts and decorative home accessories and furniture from many Asian ports of call.

Richard Gervais is the hands on owner and founder and travels extensively through Asia concentrating his travels to the countries of Brazil, Cambodia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Laos, Macau, the Philippines, Thailand, Turkey and Viet Nam in constant search of unique, interesting and the unusual in antiquities, art and artifacts. His collection is featured in several leading design showrooms on both coasts.

The Richard Gervais Collection opened in September of 1970 in a small shop on the California Street cable car line in the Polk Gulch area of San Francisco. Known then as ‘The New Manila Importing Company', the little boutique handicrafts shop soon became a favorite shopping destination for the purchase of Philippine handicrafts, especially basketry and woven textiles.    

As time passed and travels to the Philippine Islands became more frequent Richard expanded his travel destinations, visiting and shopping other countries in S. E. Asia, beginning with Bali, Indonesia. In the early1970's, he was in the forefront of importing Batiks, folk art and other Indonesian items of interest that appealed to his aesthetic and design sensibilities. From there it was a natural for him, wanderlust desire in toe, to visit and shop several other neighboring countries in the area, appeasing his insatiable appetite for traveling and shopping.

Today, almost forty years later, he still continues and relishes his foreign travels and buying trips, personally selecting all items which are available in his collection at the SOMA Gallery and Garden location and from the 15,000 square foot warehouse located in the India Basin area of San Francisco.