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by–The Art Newspaper
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One day–sooner rather than later–there will be high-speed
trains zooming through the San Joaquin Valley, connecting the
clear-air bustle of San Francisco and the smoggy aggravation
of Los Angeles.
It’s more than fitting that at the
half-way point between cities there is an oasis of tranquility
and beauty to soothe the savage beast of any traveler: The Lee
Institute for Japanese Art at the Clark Center, sitting
serenely in the middle of a 100-acre walnut grove in Hanford.
The building houses the lovingly hand-picked collection of
Willard and Elizabeth Clark, who began collecting on their
first visit to Japan in 1958. The museum was renamed last year
to honor Sherman Lee, director emeritus of the Cleveland
Museum of Art, and a long-time adviser to the
Clark’s.
Most of the collection, over 700 artworks, has
never been seen publicly. Included are many distinguished
pieces representing artistic activity from the 10th into the
21st centuries. It includes paintings, scrolls, screens,
sculptures, baskets and ceramics. The highlight, Clark’s
favorite area of the collection and its most colorful and
glamorous works, are the screens, featuring animals, elegant
figures and landscapes. They cover most of the main types
painted during the Edo period: offbeat studies of animals,
images from 12th-century Genji tales including battles, lovers
trysts and an emperor’s hunts. Due to the large size and
fragility of the screens they can be exhibited only for short
periods.
The collection is housed in an ultra-modern
earthquake-resistant building with fracture-resistant windows
and skylights–all made of heat-reflective glass to filter out
the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays.
The Clark’s
themselves live in a sequoia-wood house with features
reminiscent of a Japanese-style inn, a farmhouse and a
Buddhist temple; there is an entranceway porch that resembles
the stage used for sacred Shinto music and dancing. The house
is set in the middle of a tranquil California-style Japanese
garden with terraces, lawns and ponds.
Clark’s grandfather
first settled in the San Joaquin Valley in the 1870’s, and
made a small fortune. In 1958, Clark’s father died
unexpectedly and, as the only son, Clark took over the dairy
farm. But he had seen other worlds, in the Navy and couldn’t
imagine riding a tractor the rest of his life. However, he did
expand the ranch from 720 acres to 4500 and started a new
business: World Wide Sires Inc., which exports frozen bull
semen throughout the world. The company became the world’s
largest cattle-genetics marketing company, taking in $20
million a year by the late 1990’s.
As business boomed,
the art collection grew. In 2001, Clark sold the company and
retired … to a full-time job in his museum and library.
“Japanese art moves me more than any other kind of art,”
he says. “I like highly developed art–and to me the Japanese
are the most technically proficient artists of any culture.”
He urges visitors “to come here, sit quietly and relax,
escaping back into a time when there was more leisure.” And he
promises “Even if the crowds do increase, we’ll make every
effort to maintain the ease and silence here.”
The Ruth & Sherman Lee Institute for Japanese Art at
the Clark Center
15770 Tenth Avenue, Hanford, CA
93230-9533
tel (559) 582-4915 / fax (559) 582-9546
info@shermanleeinstitute.org
http://www.shermanleeinstitute.org/
Free admission
Meanwhile, down in Los Angeles
…
Japanese/American artist Isamu Noguchi
combined Western and Eastern traditions
The provocative new exhibition “Isamu Noguchi: Sculptural
Design” is on display at The Japanese American National Museum
in downtown Los Angeles, through May 14.
The show
illustrates how Noguchi (1904-1988) worked to integrate the
two worlds into which he was born and worked—with an
Irish-American mother and a Japanese father. He was born in
Los Angeles, but his early schooling was in the Orient, in
Japanese and Jesuit schools and, later, a progressive boarding
school in Indiana. He studied medicine at Columbia University,
while taking sculpture classes on the Lower East Side. He went
to Paris on a Guggenheim Fellowship and worked with or met the
great sculptors Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Calder, Alberto
Giacometti.
After World War II, the pioneering Noguchi
began working on large site-specific pieces—gardens and
fountains which combined his interests in architecture and
sculpture. There are Noguchi gardens in Paris, Jerusalem, and
New York, and outdoor sculptures and environments in 17
American cities—works that are a testament to the ties between
East and West.
The current museum exhibition
integrates over 75 of Noguchi’s works into a series of
dramatic installations. It includes portrait busts, unique
stone sculptures, set designs for the Martha Graham Dance
Company, and a selection of his iconic furniture designs and
Akari lamps.
Isamu Noguchi: Sculptural Design,
February 5 – May 14,
2006
JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM
369 East First
Street
Los Angeles, California 90012
phone: (213)
625-0414
fax: (213) 625-1770
http://www.janm.org/
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