Page 208 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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Loo understood well that the ambience and the physical characteristics of the display

environment were also important components in the art spectacle. Loo’s expertise in

staging exhibitions was demonstrated in his role as the installation materials supplier for

the 1935-6 International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London. 409 Loo’s galleries and

exhibitions were known for their attractive museum-style display. In the 1947 exhibition

Wares of the Sung Dynasty (Fig. 49), objects were carefully arranged in glass cases,

which is strongly reminiscent of the gallery setting at the Freer Gallery of Art (Fig. 68).

The review of the opening exhibition of Loo’s new galleries in 1936 paid special

attention to the gallery installation, “It is a pleasant place and his carefully selected

objects look far better in their new quarters than they ever did in their old home two

flights up and to the rear on Fifth Avenue among the Forties” (Roberts 1936, 21)

According to the review, the exhibition was also impressive in its use of a special wall

covering, which distinguished Loo’s gallery from other art galleries. It observed, “The

galleries are lined with a rather coarse buff material. It is the same stuff which was used

so well at the International Exhibition of Chinese Art in London to disguise the appalling

walls of Burlington House and make them a little kinder to Chinese art. This wall

covering is indeed a relief from the heavy velvets in which 57 th Street even now

entombs its art.” (Roberts 1936, 21)

The Feminine

Many spectacles that Loo launched involved female-identified objects, female

iconography, female collectors and artists. Loo’s staging of the feminized art spectacle

409 Loo provided materials to cover the gallery walls (Llewellyn 1935, V).