Page 4 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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ABSTRACT

WANG, YIYOU, Ph.D., November 2007, Interdisciplinary Arts

The Loouvre from China: A Critical Study of C. T. Loo and the Framing of Chinese Art

in the United States, 1915-1950 (314 pp.)

Director of Dissertation: Charles Buchanan

Based on archival research, this dissertation is a pioneering study of Loo Ching-Tsai

(C. T. Loo, 1880-1957), a leading international art dealer, and his role in the circulation

and reception of Chinese antiquities in the United States between 1915 and 1950. By

investigating the modes of transaction, network, conceptual framework, and visual

strategies in his business, I argue that C. T. Loo played a significant role in the framing of

“Chinese art” by situationally capitalizing on the boundaries between different territories,

concepts, and roles in the market-museum-academia network.

The introduction places Loo against the theoretical and historical background of the

exchange, study, and display of Chinese antiquities in America. The first part of this

dissertation focuses on the modes of transaction and social networks in his dealing. The

second part investigates how Loo’s negotiation of the spatial-temporal-cultural

boundaries recontextualized ancient Chinese art in modern America. The last part

examines Loo’s presentational strategies, which articulated the power relations in his

operations. This dissertation concludes that although C. T. Loo, as a network builder and

cultural mediator, played an important role in the formation of Chinese art collections in

America, his dealing was based on America’s capitalist and imperialist logic that Chinese

antiquities were to be consumed by the rich and the powerful in modern America.