Japan Arts and Life

A selection of textiles, paintings and more from a leading international collection of Japanese antiquities

Among the many ways that one can approach a distant country are study, travel and the unique sensitivity that allows a person to distinctly interpret a culture. In the case of Jeffrey Montgomery and his collection of Japanese art, all three of these elements interact in a surprisingly harmonious way. This volume presents 170 works from the 12th to 20th centuries--including textiles, furniture, paintings, religious and everyday items--carefully selected from the over 1,000 objects held by Jeffrey Montgomery's splendid collection. Renowned worldwide, the Montgomery Collection displays an extraordinary richness and a very singular substance: it is a collection of "oriental art," and at the same time it expresses a "folk culture" reinterpreted in very elevated aesthetic terms by the elegant and refined choices made by the collector who had dedicated his entire life to it.