Page 82 - C.T. Loo A paper about his impact and activities in the Chinese art Market

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objects started much earlier, from the 1910s onward there emerged a closely-knit,

small but dynamic community of dealers specializing in Chinese antiquities in New York

City. C. T. Loo was one of them.

Cooperation

Compared with dealers in Western art, especially in European art, dealers in Chinese

art, occupied a modest, and highly specialized field in the American art market.

According to statistical data about America’s art importation in 1924, the total volume for

works of art over a hundred years old was $21,116,103. Works from Europe were

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$19,000,000, and works from China and Japan were about $500,000. The necessity to

share the limited resources as well as to raise the profile of Chinese art brought these

dealers together. Their close relationship was manifested in the vicinity of their

establishments as well as their joint presence in the press and exhibitions. In the January

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1939 issue of the Parnassus, 144 “Oriental Art” was listed as a distinct category in the
“Gallery Index” section (Fig. 23). Most Asian art galleries 146 in the list were in the

neighborhood of the Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue, or between the 51st and 57 th

Streets in New York City. In the 1930s along the East 57 th Street was a cluster of

Chinese/Asian art dealers, including C. T. Loo, Tonying & Co., Parish Watson & Co.,

and Edward Wells. The co-presence and collaboration among Chinese art dealers is also

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According to Warren Cohen, Chinese decorative art and crafts for export gained
popularity in America in the eighteenth century (Cohen 1992).
143 “Increased Imports of Art Each Year,” Art News, November 8, 1924, 5
144 Parnassus was a journal published by College Art Association with the goal to
promote on Asian art.
145
“Oriental art” in this dissertation is interchangeable with “Asian art” without particular
reference to the notion of Orientalism defined by Edward Said.
146 All the Oriental art dealers listed in the advertisement handled Chinese art.