Page 191 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market
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words, the American artist was going back to ancient Chinese art, but was making new
American art by transforming it with Western modern concepts.
Ancient Chinese Art into Modern American Home
With the rise of the consumer culture, cosmopolitan taste, and advertising industry in
the 1930s and 1940s, Chinese art infiltrated into American homes and popular
consciousness in America. Loo’s dealing was part of this phenomenon.
There was the proliferation of visual and textual evidence of the American exposure to
Chinese art in the 1930s and 1940s. Sales, exhibitions, publications of Chinese art were
mushrooming. From January 1, 1930 to December 31, 1939, for example, the phrase
“Chinese art” appeared in the New York Times 502 times compared to 306 in the 1920s
and 147 in the 1910s. 390
The 1930s and 1940s saw the domestication and popularization of Chinese antiquities
with the spread of the taste for Chinese things from museums to homes of a growing
number of collectors. By the mid-1940s, the era of collecting large-scale, first-rate
Chinese art objects by ambitious collectors and museums was gone. Major Chinese
sources for antiquities such as stone sculptures were drained due to rampant plunder and
tightened Chinese government control. Less impressive and expensive, smaller-size
Chinese art objects became a popular category consumed primarily by urban bourgeoisie
as interior décor. It is no surprise that Loo stated in his 1941-42 clearing sale catalogue
that although his gallery had been considered an exclusive place with high prices, it had a
390
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