In the Moment: Japanese Art from the Larry Ellison Collection

Filled with over 100 vivid works of art and insightful essays, In the Moment is an extensive work, featuring several Japanese art forms and crafts.

Inspired by an early love of Japanese aesthetics, tech entrepreneur and avid art collector Larry Ellison has assembled an impressive collection of Japanese art spanning some eleven hundred years of history. The current selection, which introduces the collection to the public for the first time, is organized into four areas: sculpture, painting, lacquer, and metalwork. Highlights include a remarkable wood figure of Shotoku Taishi at age two, dating to the late 1200s or early 1300s; painted screens showcasing the use of classical Japanese and Chinese themes by Kano school artists in the late 1500s and early 1600s; and whimsical paintings of animals by innovative masters active in Kyoto in the 1700s. The catalogue also features lacquers representing the Rinpa and Ritsuo traditions of craftsmanship and design; examples of the Japanese armor maker's art; and bronze vases and objects from the Meiji (1868-1912) and Taisho periods (1912-1926).

Laura W. Allen is curator of Japanese art at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.

Melissa M. Rinne is associate curator of Japanese art at the Asian Art Museum.

Emily J. Sano, director emerita of the Asian Art Museum, works as a private curator and as art consultant to the Larry Ellison Collection of Japanese art.