The Strange Tale of the Richard Lane Collection

Dr. Stephen Little, Curator and Head of the Chinese & Korean Art Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Visiting Lecturer at Harvard University introduces the enormous and largely unknown art collection of Dr. Richard Lane, the great late scholar of Ukiyo-e literature and art, who passed away in Kyoto in 2002. The lecture explores Lane's history as a collector in Japan between 1952-2002, the bizarre and eclectic mix of works in the collection (roughly 10,000 scroll paintings and over 8,000 rare woodblock-illustrated books), and the collection's eventual acquisition by the Honolulu Art Museum when Little was its director. While the Lane Collection comprises primarily Edo period paintings and printed book, it also includes Chinese and Korean paintings and an enormous trove of Meiji-era paintings and books.