MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- The Minneapolis Institute of Arts today announced a major addition to its holdings of Japanese art from California businessman Willard “Bill” Clark, his wife Elizabeth “Libby,” and the Board of the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture. Spanning 10 centuries, the combined collections of nearly 1,700 objects, with an estimated value of more than $25 million, includes paintings, sculpture, woodblock prints, ceramics, bamboo baskets, and textiles. The Clark Center’s collection is being given in its entirety, while the Clarks are offering their personal collection under an arrangement of partial gift, partial purchase. The acquisition will increase the museum's Japanese art collection of more than 5,000 objects by a third, further strengthening one of the nation’s most significant collections of Asian art.

“We are grateful to Libby and Bill Clark and the Clark Board for their generosity,” said Kaywin Feldman, director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. “With this collection, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will become one of the principal centers for the study, display, and research of Japanese art in this country. We look forward to enhancing the depth of our installations in our 15 galleries devoted to Japanese art and to using these objects to create new, focused exhibitions that broaden our visitors’ understanding the richness of Japanese art and culture. It has been a great pleasure working with the Clarks on this transformative gift.”

The strengths of the Clark Collections complement and add depth to the MIA’s holdings. The Clark Collections include important examples from every school of painting in Japan since the start of the 16th century and, in particular, will enhance the MIA’s more-focused collection of ukiyo-e paintings. The Clark Collections also adds important new dimensions, particularly in the areas of Japanese bamboo baskets and sculptures, which were previously unrepresented at the MIA, and in works by individual artists. There are some 80 examples of work by ceramist Fukami Sueharu—the collection spans the artist’s entire career and is the highest concentration of his work in the world.

“Our collection is the happy work of a lifetime,” said Bill Clark. “Libby and I have had the privilege and pleasure of enjoying it for years and sharing it with the public in central California and beyond. But as we and the Board of the Clark Center looked to the future, we felt it was important to share the combined collections with even more people and give it to an institution with an already rich collection of Japanese art, which would be enhanced by our collections and would become a major study center in the field. We were very pleased with the interest and resources at the MIA and can think of no better permanent home, where thousands of visitors already enjoy the remarkable collections each year.”

Andreas Marks, PhD, current director and curator of the Clark Center in Hanford, California, will join the MIA’s staff as head of the Department of Japanese and Korean Art. Marks will have a wide range of responsibilities, ranging from the curatorial to the programmatic and academic. In October, he will curate the Clark Collections’ debut in Minneapolis with a special highlights exhibition, “The Audacious Eye: Japanese Art from the Clark Collections,” which will run through January 12, 2014, in the museum’s Target Galleries. Marks will also host lectures, scholarly symposia, colloquia, and demonstrations on Japanese art for MIA visitors and scholars from around the globe. The MIA will also continue the Clark Center’s resident intern program, which cultivates interest in the field of Japanese art and trains new scholars. As the Clark Center redefines its activities over the next five years, Marks will also curate and organize biannual, rotating exhibitions that will travel to Hanford, continuing the dynamic exhibitions program that he has shepherded over the last five years.

“I have had the honor of knowing Bill Clark for many years,” said Matthew Welch, PhD, deputy director and chief curator at the MIA. “He has been a tireless advocate for Japanese art, sponsoring and attending scholarly symposia and generously and affably making his collection accessible to anyone with an interest in Japanese art. It is with great admiration and respect that we accept this magnificent gift for the MIA. These objects add exciting depth to our encyclopedic collections and allow us to more thoroughly represent the incredible range and beauty of Japanese art.”

The Clarks began to seriously collect Japanese art in the late 1970s under the guidance of Sherman Lee, PhD, then director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Bill Clark’s lifelong interest in Japanese art intensified during frequent trips to Japan as a U.S. Navy radar control officer. Once his naval service was completed, Bill and Libby settled on the Clark dairy farm, in central California, where Bill designed and built their home in a blend of Japanese and California Arts and Crafts styles. It is situated in a Japanese garden designed by landscape architect Kodo Matsubara. As the collection grew, the Clarks constructed a gallery and office buildings in 1995 and established the Clark Center for Japanese Art, a not-for-profit art museum open to the general public. The couple then transferred a sizable portion of their collection to the new Clark Center for display. The two collections (the Clarks’ and the Center’s) have grown to some 1,700 objects encompassing nearly every form of Japanese aesthetic expression.

Bill Clark is the founder and former CEO of World Wide Sires Inc., the world’s leading cattle genetics marketing organization representing the U.S. Artificial Insemination Cooperatives, which brings together suppliers and customers to promote efficient global livestock production. In 1991, Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun 4th Class, Gold Rays with Rosette, for his contribution to the improvement of Japan’s dairy cattle industry. For his accomplishments in promoting cultural and educational exchange between Japan and the United States through the creation of the Clark Center for Japanese Art to strengthen the study of Japanese art, Clark was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun 3rd Class, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, in 2009. Clark is among very few Americans to twice receive the Order of the Rising Sun.

The Clarks’ gift to the MIA continues their ongoing commitment to promoting Japanese art and culture. Having amassed this important collection, the Clarks sought an institutional home that would keep the collection intact, provide broader context for the objects, and ensure their care in perpetuity. The MIA, which has one of the nation’s leading Asian art collections, more than satisfied all of their criteria.