Now at the Academy is the first glimpse of the Richard Lane Collection, which the Academy acquired in 2003. It’s a hoard of Japanese art and as a team of experts go through it, delightful discoveries are being made. Scott Johnson, professor at Kansai University in Osaka and a Japanese art-history scholar, curated this first exhibition of works from the collection. He was in town last month to work with the Academy’s Asian Art Department and took a little time to talk about some works in “Richard Lane and the Floating World,” on view in Gallery 14 through Feb. 1. Here he fills us in on the Kambun Master, an artist whom Japanese art scholar Richard Lane identified. He coined the unknown artist’s name, and it is now used by Japanese art historians.
