Bao Lin Gallery, Hong
Kong.
A Downtown
Flavor for New York's First and Largest Asian
Show
By Laura Beach
NEW YORK CITY -- Arts of Pacific Asia is the first and largest of
New York's Asian art showcases, offering an eclectic,
high-quality range of South and East Asian art and antiques in a
setting that is decidedly less formal than that of its uptown
neighbor, the International Asian Art Fair
With the Asia Week auctions well underway but the International
show not yet open, Art of Pacific Asia premiered at the Lexington
Avenue Armory at 26th Street at noon on Thursday, March 27,
seeing steady traffic through the close of the show on Sunday.
Organizers Caskey-Lees of California in conjunction with Shador
of Maryland have created a handsome and varied fair supplemented
by a cafe and a frond-filled tea garden complete with colorful
finches in bamboo cages. Naturally, even the birds splash about
in blue and white china baths.
While German dealer Erik Thomsen offered Japanese tea wares at
the International show, his wife Cornelia arrayed bamboo baskets,
bronzes, scrolls paintings and a colorful six-panel Edo period
screen, $69,000, at Arts of Pacific Asia. Melbourne, Australia,
dealer Lesley Kehoe meanwhile offered contemporary lacquer ware
uptown and a pair of Eighteenth Century Japanese Kano School
screens downtown.
Attendance at the four-day show peaked on Thursday and Friday,
but dropped over the weekend for an overall decline of nine
percent versus a year ago. Organizers attributed the loss at the
gate to travel fears exacerbated by SARS, the respiratory virus
of Chinese origin; war in Iraq; and economic uncertainty.
Both venues noted especially robust trade in Chinese Tang dynasty
figures.
"Don't break them. They're sold," a colleague called to Vallin
Galleries' Peter Rosen-berg, who only moments before had
transacted the sale of a large pair of unglazed prancing horses.
The Wilton, Conn., dealer, who also featured a large blue and
white fish bowl with the emperor's reign mark and two very early
Buddhist paintings, sold a second pair of horses before Arts of
Pacific Asia concluded.
More Tang horses sold at Marc Richards of Los Angeles and Alberto
Manuel Chang of New York City. The latter had considerable
interest in a Liao dynasty unglazed pottery soldier. Several feet
high, the figure dated to AD 907-1125.
At Art & Antiques Bachmann Echenstein of Basel, Switzerland,
a pair of Tang pottery earth spirits was $17,800. The dealers
also featured a Japanese Heian period carved torso, $53,000, and
a two-fold Edo period screen decorated with pine and plovers on a
field of gold, $24,500.
Chinese porcelain was notably scarce at both shows, perhaps
because top international dealers are choosing instead to exhibit
at the Winter Antique Show, the New York Ceramics Fair or the
Palm Beach International Show. Even so, a blanc de chine vase of
circa 1640 was snapped up at Nicholas S. Pitcher Oriental Art of
London.
Japanese art was good and plentiful. Akanezumiya's sumptuous
display featured a six-panel Edo period screen depicting
"Taishokan (The Great Woven Cap)." One of three signed examples
known, it was $35,000. Large carved wood Edo period figures of a
Buddhist lion and a dog were $8,500.
L'Asie Exotique sales included a pair of red lacquer and
gilt-decorated leather saddle covers. The New York dealers
offered the decorative pieces with a pair of doll-like Takeda
Ningyo of the Soga brothers, circa 1800, 26 inches high, $7,500.
The costumed figures depict the fight scene on the Gojo Bridge.
Shibui Japanese Antiques of Pasadena, Calif., sold bronze, silver
and bamboo. Brandt Oriental Art of London, specialists in Meiji
bronze and lacquer, were deep in negotiations for the sale of a
large figure of the goddess Benzaiten, enshrined in an Eighteenth
Century lacquer ware traveling case with gilt copper mounts.
Eleanor Abraham Asian Art, New York.
Japanese print dealer Robin Kennedy described the show as
"surprisingly solid" and remarked on the amount of impulse
buying. The Richmond, UK, dealer offered a circa 1804 print,
$4,250, from Kitagawa Utamaro's series, "Summer Outfits for
Today's Beauties."
Colorado dealer Martin Kay devoted a shelf to Sumida Gawa
pottery, a little known and still inexpensive Japanese export
ware that bears some resemblance to American art pottery. A small
jug was $650; a large vase heavily encrusted with applied
flowers, $9,800.
Sri Lankan and Laotian art made a rare appearance at Jazmin Asian
Arts of Singapore. Dealer Grace Parama-spry featured bible boxes
made of for the Dutch trade, circa 1650, of ebony calamander; a
trio of Eighteenth Century Laotian Buddhas in the "Calling For
Rain" pose; and a carved ebony Eighteenth Century Sri Lankan
manuscript box, $22,000, inlaid with ivory, copper and silver.
The large, disembodied hands of an Eighteenth Century Burmese
Buddha floated in midair at Tony Cammaert's Kyoto Gallery of
Brussels.
At Eleanor Abraham, a Tenth to Eleventh Century pink sandstone
head of a Madhya Pradesh, Indian deity, gazed beneficently at
passersby.
Great sculpture was the litmus test for quality. Among the most
impressive pieces on the floor of Art of Pacific Asia was the
voluptuous carving "Brama and Consort," $65,000, a Twelfth
Century western Indian relic at Jeremy Knowles of London.
A Eighth Century carved buff sandstone stele, 22 inches high,
anchored New York dealer Michael Cohn's display, and ancient
Chinese bronzes attracted a polyglot crowd at T.K. Asian
Antiquities of Williamsburg, Va.
London dealers Nader Rasti and Chris Hampton unveiled a Thai
Ayutthya carved sandstone bust, $25,000, dating from the late
Fifteenth to Early Sixteenth Century. Most soothing of all was
the serene portrait bust of a bodhisattva, $12,000, at Angelo
Attilio Attili of Parma, Italy. Sales included two Tibetan wooden
figures at Soo Tze Oriental Antiques of Melbourne, Australia.
Textiles were another show strength. Vichai and Lee Chinalai of
Chinalai Tribal Antiquities, Shoreham, N.Y., mounted embroidered
bridal blankets made by the Maonan people of Guangxi Province in
China. The lovingly stitched trousseau treasures are intricately
patterned with symbols from nature, traditional Chinese
mythology, Taoism and Buddhism. Dating from the late Nineteenth
Century, the blankets ranged from $800 to $10,000.
The rarest item in a booth shared by Clive Rogers and Tanoti
Textiles, both of the UK, was a Thirteenth to Fourteenth Century
fragment of a gold-shot silk Mongolian garment, $6,500.
The most unusual carpet, a late Ching Chinese imperial silk
weaving with raised and recessed motifs, was $22,000 at Galerie
Arabesque and Michael Craycraft of Stuttgart, Germany.
New York dealer Moke Mokotoff arrayed Tibetan scroll paintings,
or thangka, dating from the Eighteenth Century. Most masterful
was "Paradise of the Dalai Lama," $25,000.
"I've owned it for 15 years. I've never had it on the market, and
I'll never own another one," Cynthia Shaver, a Belvedere, Calif.,
dealer in Japanese textiles, said of a kesa, or Buddhist priest's
robe, dating from the late Eighteenth Century that was $56,000 in
her stand.
During the preview, Jon Eric Riis of Atlanta sold a Manchu lady's
crown made of kingfisher feathers. Riis said that his sales far
exceeded his expectations. Minnesota dealer Ron Hort's vibrant
display of Central Asian garments resulted in 40 sales, including
antique children's clothing.
The show's few jade and ivory dealers were also pleased. Stuart
Hilbert of the Jade Dragon, Ann Arbor, Mich., said his sales had
increased by more than 30 percent from the year before.
Contemporary craft is only a minor presence at New York Arts of
Pacific Asia Show. Nevertheless, it is a specialty shown with
flair by London dealer Katie Jones, who combines traditional
antiques and cutting-edge craft in mixed-media displays at both
shows and in her Notting Hill gallery.
"Don't break them!" gasped a bystander as Peter Rosenberg of
Vallin Galleries, Wilton, Conn., posed with the large Tang
pottery horses he had just sold.
"I've been mixing the two for four or five years," explains
Jones, who buys directly from Japanese artists. "It has taken
time to form relationships with the artists, but I find American
collectors are very receptive to the work." Her most striking
pieces were abstract mixed-metal vessels in powdered gold,
copper, tin and lacquer by Toru Kaneko. A large vase, $2,500,
sold as the doors opened.
The Tolman Gallery, long known for contemporary limited edition
Japanese prints, was celebrating the 90th birthday of master
printmaker Toko Shineda. Dealer Allison Tolman said her father
had flown to Tokyo for an exhibit organized by the Tolman
Gallery. The display, which continued in Tokyo to April 13,
included an unprecedented loan from the Japan's imperial family.
Another take on the contemporary was offered by Thomas Murray of
Mill Valley, Calif., who puts together old pieces in new way. His
booth was an intriguing mix of calligraphy; an Indonesian stone
architectural element, $12,000; and a bust of Buddha.
When the New York Arts of Pacific Asia concluded on Sunday, March
30, organizers said that, commercially, it had been neither the
best nor the worst of fairs. Even so, the concentration of so
many top-notch dealers from all over the world in one place at
one time was a luxury for the buying public and an investment in
an even stronger Asian art market to come.
