Page 118 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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requested through the MFA curator K. Tomita a set of photos of the stone sculptures that

259
Loo sold to the museum. Loo also offered to pay for these photographs.
C. T. Loo certainly offered an extraordinary example of the dealer’s role in advancing

Chinese art scholarship. His “scientific zeal” alone, however, does not explain the strong

scholarly orientation of his dealership. Loo knew very well the relationship between

knowledge and an object’s aesthetic and economic value. In the 1941-2 catalogue of

Exhibition of Chinese Arts, Loo stated that some fine objects might not appeal to the eye,

but their value would be justified with the increase of our knowledge, “…certain objects

which have a sound background, either because of their rarity, period, refinement, color

or shape do not give an appealing effect and thus, though rare or unique, their importance

is not always understood and their value approved or appreciated. Fortunately the

understanding of a genuinely fine object always marches parallel with the gradual

improvement of our knowledge, thus a fine work of art eventually will be understood,

loved and treasured.” (Loo 1941, Introduction)

When Loo arrived in the United States in the mid 1910s, he was facing a largely

uninitiated audience and a vast amount of little researched objects. A. Salmony observed

that many objects in Loo’s Sino-Siberia art collection came with no record of their place

of origin and provenance (Salmony 1933, 1). In this incipient stage of Chinese art study,

education and research were of critical importance to Loo’s dealing. It is largely through

publication that Loo’s collections became part of the canon in the academic discourse of

Chinese art in America. Martha Davidson’s article in Art News, titled “Great Chinese

259 C. T. Loo to K. Tomita, December 2, 1939, folder C. T. Loo box: I to L, 1936-1947,
AAOA-MFA.