The Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture--Build It and They Will Come

Bill Clark

Bill Clark, founder of the Clark Center for Japanese Art and Culture in rural Hanford, California, started collecting at a very young age. When the land on the ranch he grew up on was leveled for irrigation, he’d pick up arrowheads, branding irons, barbed wire, and more to add to a growing collection. He stumbled upon the first piece of Japanese art in his collection years later while he was an airborne radio control officer. While in the Pacific, he traveled often to Otsugi, just outside of Yokohama. Walking in the countryside, he spotted a large sake bottle. The lady of the house gave it to him, and he was on his way to one of the best collections of Japanese art in the U.S.

Back in California, he took over his father’s ranch. He soon became the largest distributor of bull semen in the world. As he put it at the Conversation, it’s much cheaper to send his product around the world in a vial than to send a bull across the Pacific. This lucrative business took him to many countries and allowed him to build his incredible art collection.

Early on, Clark befriended Japanese art expert Dr. Sherman Lee in Cleveland. Sherman would review photographs of objects Clark was considering, and often traveled with him to Japan on collecting trips. Sherman would often advise Clark to make a purchase or when to pass something up. But Clark wasn’t always easily discouraged. Any work that spoke to him went home with him whether Sherman approved or not!

Clark and his wife Libbie had no intention to build a center for Japanese art on their ranch. But as he kept buying paintings and other works, he needed to expand his storage space. They built a kura—a storage house that the Japanese have behind their own homes. When the kura filled up and his wife exhausted herself feeding all the guests who came to see his growing collection, they built a library and gallery with the intention of using it as a research facility. But interest in his art grew, and they found they needed to open by appointment, and soon after that, they started opening five afternoons, 11 months a year. The center now sees 4–5,000 people a year. Clark hopes to continue expanding the center’s educational programs and bringing these special works to an area of California that doesn’t see much culture.

Clark showed several slides of the center’s library and galleries, bonsai garden and incredible artworks within. From Nagasaki school paintings to bamboo sculptures to ceramics, he showed the depth of the collection and his particular delight with off-beat and whimsical pieces.

Clark is considered one of the youngest collectors of Japanese art today, and he encourages a younger generation to buy what they love and to read a lot, look a lot, pick what moves them. He recommends starting with the many beautiful kimonos, bamboo works and ceramics that are available at good prices. He advises collectors to buy works that are plentiful now, as soon they will be rare and more precious.

At the next day’s workshop, Clark admitted that his unabashed reason for coming to Denver was to encourage those gathered to collect Japanese art that might end up at the Denver Art Museum. Collecting, he says, is his oxygen.

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