For decades The Tolman Collection has been a pillar in Japan's culture of modern art, thanks in large part to the care it takes in cultivating lasting relationships with specific artists.
The career of its founder, Norman H. Tolman, has toured through a study of Chinese and Tibetan linguistics as well as diplomacy with the U.S. Foreign Service, settling eventually on art. Today, he is among the foremost ambassadors of contemporary Japanese art to the world.
Following the success of two recent exhibitions in collaboration with the Conrad Tokyo, one for Toko Shinoda and the other for Daniel Kelly, Tolman visited the hotel to thank its staff, who asked him to begin thinking of a third show, to be new and utterly unique. "I told them, 'I came having already thought of it!'" he said. "I want the Conrad lobby to look like a flame of color is flowing through it."