Richard Douglas Lane (1926–2002) was an American art critic, collector, dealer, historian, and writer. He was dealer of Japanese art, lived in Japan for much of his life, and had a long association with the Honolulu Museum of ArtinHawaii, which now holds his vast art collection.
Lane was born in Kissimmee, Florida. After graduating from high school in 1944, during World War II, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. In the Marines he trained as a Japanese translator, and served in Japan during the war. He later received a bachelor's degree from the University of Hawaii in Japanese and Chinese literature, and continued his studies at Columbia University, where he earned a master's degree and a PhD in 18th-century Japanese literature.[1] In 1957, Lane moved to Japan, where he lived for the rest of his life.
Lane was never on a university faculty, but supported himself as an author, dealer and consultant. He was a visiting research associate at the Honolulu Museum of Art from 1957 to 1971, during which time he helped catalog the James A. Michener collection of Japanese prints.[2] In 1960 Lane married physician Chiyeko Okawa; they remained married until her death in 1999.[3] In 2002, he died intestate and without heirs in Kyoto, Japan, and the Honolulu Museum of Art purchased his collection from the Japanese judicial authorities. The Lane Collection consisted of nearly 20,000 paintings, prints and books.[4]
From October 2008 to February 2009, the Honolulu Museum of Art exhibited a sampling of the collection under the title "Richard Lane and the Floating World".[5][6] From March 2010 to June 2010, the museum exhibited a second installment of the collection under the title "Masterpieces from the Richard Lane Collection".
Among the works in the Richard Lane "Arts of the Bedchamber: Japanese Shunga,"[7] which included over 50 erotic paintings, prints, and woodblock-printed books from the Lane Collection.[8]
Lane, Richard, Shinpen Shoki Hanga: Makurae (Shunga: The Ukiyo-e Primitives), Tokyo, Gakken, 1995. ISBN4-05-500146-0
Lane, Richard(contributor); Hayashi, Yoshikazu; Kamiya, Hoshu, Oya, Kyoko; Okumura, Masanobu et al. (editors). Teihon Ukiyo-e Shunga Meihin Shusei (The Complete Ukiyo-e Shunga), Tokyo, Kawade Shobo Shinsha. 26 volumes published between 1995 and 2000.
Lane, Richard "Kesareta shunga wo abaku" ("消された春画"を暴く), from Special: Ukiyoe kesareta shunga. Geijutsu shincho, pp.4-40, Volume 6, Number 45, ISSN 0435-1657, Shinchosha, June 1994. NAID 40000935384.
Lane, Richard, Erotica Japonica: Masterworks of Shunga Painting, New York, Japan Publications, 1986. ISBN0-87040-665-5.
Lane, Richard, Ukiyo-e Holschnitte. Künstler und Werke, Zürich, 1978.
Lane, Richard, Images from the Floating World: The Japanese Print, Including an Illustrated Dictionary of Ukiyo-e, New York, Putnam, 1978. ISBN0-399-12193-5.
Lane, Richard Douglas, HokusaitoHiroshige, Köln, Galerie Eike Moog, 1977. English and Japanese, with one pamphlet in German.OCLC844790928. Based on Hokusai and Hiroshige, Tokyo : Gakubundō, 1976, in English and Japanese, OCLC1111408815.
Lane, Richard, Japanische Holzschnitte, München Zürich, Droemersche, 1964, in German.[9]
Lane, Richard, Masters of the Japanese Print, Their World and Their Work (The Arts of Man series), Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1962.
Michener, James A. with notes on the prints by Richard Lane, Japanese Prints, From the Early Masters to the Modern, Rutland, Vermont, Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1959.
Michener, James A. with notes on the prints by Richard Lane, Japanese Prints, From the Early Masters to the Modern, Rutland, Vermont, Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1959.
Kimura, Yaeko; Nakamura, Mitsutoshi (2014) Kurohon aohon: Honoruru bijutsukan shozo (Kurohon and aohon: from the Collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art), Hanashoin, in Japanese. (available as PDF file at HMOA) OCLC 1023519843. As the survey report by Kyūshū Daigaku Group on the Wahon Japanese books collection at the Honolulu Museum of Art, 2014 (Fukuoka).
Johnson, Scott, “The Young Scholar Dick Lane and One of His First Loves”, Orientations, Volume 37, Number 6, September 2006.
Little, Stephen, “The Richard Lane Collection”, Orientations, Volume 36, Number 2, March, 2005.
Nakano, Mitsutoshi (2016). Shion: wasureenu edo bungaku kenkyusha (My Mentor: Unforgettable Scholar of Edo Litelature), Tokyo : Iwanami Shoten, in Japanese. ISBN9784000611039. OCLC 1004334870.
Nakano, Mitsutoshi (2015). Edo no hanpon – Shoshigaku dangi (Printed books of Edo period – Bibliographic Talks), pbk, Iwanami Shoten. Iwanami gendai bunko, No.339, Gakujutsu, in Japanese. ISBN9784006003395. OCLC 933498348.
Nakano Mitsutoshi (2015). Juhasseiki no Edo bungei miyabi to zoku no seijuku (18th Century Edo Literature: The maturity of Elegance
And Vulgarity), Iwanami Shoten, in Japanese. ISBN9784000288125. OCLC 932168525.
Yamashita, Noriko. (2019). Zaigai eiribon: Kenkyu to mokuroku (Studies on E-iri bon Illustrated Ukiyo-e books among Collections Abroad), Miyai shoten, in Japanese.ISBN9784838233557. OCLC 1129668786.
