Background
Lane was born in Kissimmee, Florida.
historian art historian art collector
Lane was born in Kissimmee, Florida.
Rollins College; University of Hawaii. Columbia University; Columbia University.
He lived in Japan for much of his life, and had a long association with the Honolulu Museum of Art in Hawaii, which now holds his vast art collection. After graduating from high school in 1944, during World 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 Doctor of Philosophy in 18th-century Japanese literature.
In 1957, he 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.
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
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".
From March 2010 to June 2010, the Academy exhibited a second installment of the collection under the title "Masterpieces from the Richard Lane Collection". Among the works in the Richard Lane collection are over 800 works of Japanese shunga (erotica). From November 2012 to March 2013, the Honolulu Museum of Art held the exhibition "Arts of the Bedchamber: Japanese Shunga," which included over 50 erotic paintings, prints, and woodblock-printed books from the Lane Collection.
Phi Kappa Phi.
