March to June, 2026, the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum displayed a wonderful exhibition of Smith materials. To say I co-curated the show would be saying too much. The museum’s curator, Momo Muroi, absorbed everything I have ever done on Smith, and then she added her own vision and insight and creativity. We were in touch for the past three years, but I didn’t see the show until I was there for the opening. The results of Momo’s work were profound. It is my favorite Smith show that I’ve seen. The way Momo blended angles and aspects of Smith’s life and work, mine, and her own original thinking moved me. It felt like passing the baton to a younger generation, someone who deeply cares. I was elated to take part in the opening and symposium with Momo and Smith’s widow, Aileen Mioko Smith.
While in Tokyo for two weeks for the Smith show, I was also able to accomplish new research on Bill Evans and his wife, Ellaine Schultz Evans. The Bill Evans Trio toured 11 cities in Japan in early 1973, with Ellaine accompanying Bill on the trip. Not long after they returned, Ellaine jumped it front of the subway at the northern tip of Manhattan, near the Cloisters. My next book is about Bill and Ellaine.
This photo below is from my hotel room my last night in Tokyo.
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