The Audacious Eye presents more than 100 highlights of the legendary Clark Collections of Japanese art, recently acquired by the MIA. This is the first time that such a broad range of the works has ever been shown.

In 1995, Bill and Libby Clark founded the non-profit Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture near their home in the remote, agricultural heart of the central California valley, 45 miles south of Fresno. They had prodigiously collected Japanese art since 1978, and the collection had become internationally renowned. The Clark Center, dedicated to collecting, conserving, studying, and exhibiting the arts of Japan, made the collection accessible to anyone who ventured out. Many have, including scholars from around the world who have come to study individual works.

Bill Clark has described himself as an “unrestrained, undisciplined, crazy collector.” In his pursuit of intriguing objects—what catches his audacious eye—he has disregarded market trends and any specific medium, time period, artist, or motif. The 1,700 works of art amassed in the Clarks’ personal collection and through donations to the Clark Center range across 1,200 years of Japanese art, from the eighth century to the present day. From paintings to woodblock prints, ceramics to textiles, wood sculptures to works of bamboo and lacquer, the collections—and this exhibition—offer unusually rich and personal insights into the nature of connoisseurship and the breadth of Japanese art.

This exhibition is organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  To reserve tickets, please call 612-870-3000 or reserve tickets online.

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