Black Bull

Japanese art from the Clark Collections, now on exhibit at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is called The Audacious Eye.

Mochizuki Gyokusen’s almost life-size “Black Bull, ” a 19th-century screen painting, is an idiosyncratic choice­ — a fierce, muscular beast that looks ready to charge out of a modern stockade.

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.

This exhibition hints at the stunning variety and bold taste that accorded the Clarks’ endeavor, begun in the late 1970s, a kind of legendary status. Tucked in the agricultural valley of central California, their collections grew from frequent trips to Japan, stoking their enthusiasm for Japanese aesthetics—their home is a blend of Japanese and California Arts and Crafts styles. The collections’ 1,700 objects now range across 10 centuries and from paintings to sculpture, ceramics to textiles, woodblock prints to bamboo baskets. They include important examples from every school of painting in Japan since the 16th century and from some of its most acclaimed living artists, including 80 pieces by ceramist Fukami Sueharu—the largest assembly of his sleek bluish-white porcelain in the world.

The January theme for City Daily Photo bloggers is "Photo of the Year."