Page 6 - Bonhams Wen Tang Collectiont, October 2014 Hong Kong
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THE FENG WEN TANG COLLECTION
The commercial art market in Hong Kong is a very demanding discovered a Zen Buddhist component in the contours and
and competitive environment. To be successful while glaze of a Jianyao black-glazed tea bowl.
maintaining (and burnishing) a personal reputation, a dealer
needs: great practical and academic knowledge; a loyal Handle any of these ceramics during the preview, and you will
range of buying and selling clients; a critical and independent appreciate that a lifetime of study and enjoyment has been
judgment; strong resources; and (preferably) good language distilled into this collection of early ceramic vessels, often small
skills to accommodate a truly international clientele. This is a in size but outstanding in design and quality.
formidable range of requirements, and no other global Chinese-
art-dealing centre demands such varied skills. Susan Chen is However, ceramics only represents one facet of Susan Chen’s
one of the few Hong Kong dealers who have acquired them all, passion for Chinese art. Her interests (and business career)
in a long career spent handling top-quality Chinese art. have encompassed a number of related Chinese categories,
where her traditional Chinese tastes are even more in evidence:
The traditional belief in China is that three essential elements 20th century Chinese painting, jade carvings, scholar’s objects,
underpin a successful business: good timing for a new and early metalwork. She notes Mr Nakamura’s amazement at
venture; an excellent location; and a harmonious personal the range of material she traded, as he sat beside her during
character. Susan Chen’s Hong Kong Gallery achieved all three one fairly typical afternoon in her Hong Kong gallery; and this
during her career. busy Hong Kong activity ignores her involvement at auctions
overseas in China, London, New York, and San Francisco.
Her remarkable language skills are one of the keys to her
professional and personal success. Equally at home, socially Tucked away in a discreet upstairs gallery, firstly in Kowloon
and professionally, in Taipei, Tokyo, London, New York or San behind the Peninsula Hotel, then over on Hong Kong-side in
Francisco, she is fluent in each local language, and entirely Lyndhurst Terrace, and latterly in Ice House Street, her stock
comfortable within any social conventions. A cosmopolitan and her personal collection became a magnet for the world’s
collector-dealer herself, she is married to an English collector top collectors and dealers, dispirited by the opaque games
who shares all her cultural interests, and who has himself played out along Hollywood Road. Filtered through the prism
balanced a highly successful business career in Hong Kong’s of her super-critical judgment, the objects in her gallery were
shipping fraternity with a deep and productive commitment often exceptional, and never routine. No wonder the world’s
to the cultural life of his adopted city. Susan and Anthony cognoscenti, visiting Hong Kong in search of museum-quality
Hardy are therefore a high-profile couple without parallel in treasures to buy, always found time to drop into her gallery.
Hong Kong’s cultural community. Excellent company on any Even if there was nothing in stock exactly to their taste at the
occasion, they are equally welcome as guests at a Hong time, Susan’s generous hospitality ensured a warm welcome
Kong Museum opening, a gala charity dinner, or a lecture on for overseas guests at her favourite restaurants a short walk
Chinese art in Bonham’s Pacific Place Gallery. from her office!
This auction catalogue demonstrates clearly that Susan Bonhams is delighted to be offering at auction this
Chen has a particular affection for the simply-coloured and distinguished private collection of early Chinese ceramics,
attractively-glazed wares created during a unique era in created during one of China’s most glittering craft eras. It
Chinese ceramic production in North and South China. Her was formed with a discriminating eye and a tight focus. The
fondness arises from both her traditional Chinese preference collection is a time capsule, representing a period when fine
for these often outwardly simple wares; but also from her pieces could be found (with a bit of good luck, diligent daily
Japanese-inspired connoisseurship, which prompts a collector pursuit, and a reputation for fair dealing) on a relatively regular
nurtured in wabi-cha to interpret these pots as sophisticated basis around the highways and byways of the Hong Kong art
products hiding their impressive potting skills under an trade, mostly before the 1990s.
appearance of simplicity and spontaneity. Collectors educated
in both these approaches combine the aesthetic preferences Susan Chen has named her personal collection Feng Wen
of a Ming scholar drawn to Song wares, with the philosophical Tang in memory of her late father, who was a profound
stance of Sen Rikyu and other early tea-masters who influence on both her character and her later cultural interests.
Colin Sheaf
Chairman, Bonham’s Asia
August 2014
4 | Bonhams
