Page 155 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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Indian models, the other based on the pictorial linear style rooted in the indigenous relief

carvings of Han mortuary stones” (Davidson 1939, 74).

C. T. Loo of Paris, Peking, or New York?

To define C. T. Loo’s identity is a rather perplexing task. One finds a Chinese-looking

gentleman wearing a Western-style suit, marrying a French woman, speaking fluent

Chinese, French, and English, and conducting business in Paris, Peking, London, and

New York. Loo’s identity often shifted according to the changing situation. Sometimes,

he seemed neither quite Chinese, European, nor American either. Sometimes, he was all

these at once. This section considers Loo as a cultural actor, who situationally performed

“Frenchness/Europeanness”, “Chineseness”, and “Americanness” to his advantage. 325

Frenchness/Europeanness

In America, Loo was often labeled as “C. T. Loo of Paris”. Although a large part of

Loo’s business was conducted in the United States after the mid-1910s, Loo identified

himself mostly as a French/European dealer 326 . Henry La Farge in his Art News article

described Loo as, “…married to a Frenchwoman, Mr. Loo is completely

Europeanized…”(La Farge 1950, 42) Loo’s friend and client Edward von der Heydt

observed that Loo “…liked to dance in the European way. His daughters have been

brought up as French girls and he spoke mostly French with them” (Heydt 1957, 186).

325
Christopher Steiner notes that African traders shifted their “ethnic identity according
to situational circumstance”(Steiner 1994, 89).
326 Paris was Loo’s home base to which he regularly returned.