"Strange and Wondrous: Japanese Art Collected by Bill Clark": Presentation by Andreas Marks, PhD.

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The Heart of America Japan-America Society is excited to sponsor the following presentation to be held at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art:

"Strange and Wondrous: Japanese Art Collected by Bill Clark": Presentation by Andreas Marks, PhD. Curator of Japanese and Korean Art Japanese and Korean Art Department Head Director of the Clark Center at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

A reception for HAJAS members and their guests will be held in the Rockhill Room at the Nelson at 12:30. The presentation will begin at 2:00 and will be held in the Lens 2 Room in the Bloch Building. (The presentation is open to the public.)

Please RSVP by registering through the Heart of America Japan-America Society website (on this event).
RSVPs are required due to limited space, please. Appetizers, desserts and beverages will be provided. More info, including parking info, below.

Questions? Email HAJAS. 

Bill and Libby Clark amassed one of the world’s finest collections of Japanese art according to their own finely honed interests, instincts, and idiosyncrasies. Not trends. Not markets. Not a particular time, place, or medium. They collected what they liked—what drew their audacious eyes. The Clarks’ endeavor began in the late 1970s and as a result they founded their own museum in 1995, the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture.

Tucked in the agricultural valley of central California, the Clark Center became home to 1,700 objects and presented exhibitions to the general public for 20 years until it closed on July 1 of this year. Ultimately the collections ranged across 10 centuries and from paintings to sculpture, ceramics to textiles, woodblock prints to bamboo baskets, including important examples from every school of painting in Japan since the 16th century and from some of its most acclaimed living artists.

In 2013, the collections moved to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and with it did Andreas Marks, who served for five years as Director of the Clark Center in California, and will give insights into an obsessive collector who has a great sense of humor.

Funded by a grant to the National Association of Japan America Societies from the United States-Japan Foundation. We gratefully acknowledge the generosity of these two organizations.