Page 108 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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Chinese Ritual Bronzes was launched in the Detroit Institute of Arts in 1940. In the same

year, Loo participated in the Portland Art Museum’s exhibition of Chinese sculptures.

Robert Tyler Davis, the museum’s director, selected ten sculptures from the collections of

a group of New York dealers, including C. T. Loo & Co., Tonying & Co., Yamanaka &

229
Co., and Dikran G. Kelekian, Inc. The display of the loans and the public attention that

they generated helped museums to rally support from museum benefactors to acquire the

objects. For dealers, to have their objects displayed in museums not only advertised their

businesses, but also served as a springboard to potential sales. Loo’s loan strategy seemed

quite successful. One of the white marble statues on view in the Portland Art Museum

exhibition (Fig. 31) 230 , for example, was sent to the Museum on approval for $5,000 on

May 27, 1940. The statue was subsequently acquired by the museum for $3,800 on

October 7, 1940. 231 In 1918, Loo lent the famous Tang horse relief panels (UPM C395,

C396) to the University Museum of Pennsylvania (Zhou 2001, 44, quoted from April 19,

1918, UPM archive), and as Loo had expected, the museum eventually raised a large sum

to make the payment.

In some cases, Loo included museum collections in his own exhibition. Loo’s 1936

exhibition inaugurating the new gallery showed the sandstone Bodhisattva recently

acquired by R. E. Fuller for the Seattle Art Museum (Davidson 1936, 12).

229
An Exhibition of Chinese Sculpture on the Coast,” Art News, August 17, 1940, 11.
230 For details of the white marble statues, see Chapter Five, pp.211-2.
231 Inventory card 81483, FCA.