Page 13 - Sothebys Classical Paintings and Caligraphy September 2018 New York

dynasty’, along with Ming pieces ‘in the Chinese taste’ by then was largely securely stored in the museum-
such as ‘Þ ne dainty bowls, stem cups, vases etc. of like environs of a subterranean bomb shelter in the
almost any description, but not the clumsy types with grounds of his home in Oak Park, Illinois. In a 1952
poor color and hurried drawings’. proÞ le in the Chicago Tribune, the bunker is described
Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor as storing a ‘priceless hoard’, with ‘shelves weighted
in 1941, the inventories of Yamanaka’s galleries in with priceless pieces of Chinese art, prizes produced
America fell into the custody of the United States thru [sic] a span of centuries. A record of a nation in
government, which dissolved the company, seizing tapestry, bronze, jade, pottery, robes, and lacquer’.
and eventually selling o! much of its merchandise The 1950s witnessed perhaps the most fervent
through auctions held at the Parke-Bernet Galleries period of buying activity for Stephen Junkunc,
in New York in May and June 1944. This same year when he continued to make large acquisitions from
Hisazo Nagatani (d. 1994), the former manager of Nagatani and Frank Caro, the successor to C.T. Loo,
Yamanaka’s Chicago gallery, established himself as as well as from Alice Boney in and Warren E. Cox
an independent dealer in Chicago under the company in New York, and Barling of Mount Street Ltd., in
name Nagatani Inc. Nagatani continued to serve as London. His purchases during this decade, which
a consistent source of works for Junkunc for over sometimes involved acquiring up to Þ fty works at
three decades, supplying by far the majority of the a time, appear to have concentrated primarily on
works in the Junkunc Collection. During the 1940s, early material, including a number of acquisitions
Junkunc appears to have broadened the scope of of Buddhist sculpture, which consistently ranked
his collecting interests to focus on earlier material, amongst his most expensive purchases. Junkunc
including Song to Ming ceramics, archaic bronzes and continued purchasing and studying Chinese art until
– crucially – Buddhist sculpture. Aside from Nagatani, his death in 1978, whereupon the collection passed to
he purchased extensively from auction, particularly his son Stephen Junkunc IV and has remained in the
from New York’s Parke-Bernet Galleries, as well from family collection.
Tonying & Company and C.T. Loo, both in New York. Throughout his lifetime, Stephen Junkunc
In the January 1938 edition of the art magazine III worked closely with and actively supported the
Parnassus, Junkunc noticed an advertisement curators at American museums. He retained a long-
for John Sparks Ltd illustrating a limestone relief standing relationship with the Art Institute of Chicago
fragment from the Longmen caves showing a luohan (AIC), repeatedly loaning works from his collection to
holding a lotus blossom. Junkunc tore out and kept exhibitions through the 1940s-60s. Works from the
this advertisement in his Þ les. Fifteen years later, on Junkunc Collection were also loaned to the seminal
3rd March 1953, when his collecting activity was very Ming Blue and White exhibition at the Art Institute of
much focused on early Buddhist sculpture, Junkunc Chicago, which traveled to the Philadelphia Museum
wrote to Sparks reminding them of their advertisement of Art in 1949, and to the Arts of the T’ang exhibition of
and requesting that should the sculpture ever become 1956 at the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science
available, to contact him at once. Regrettably, Junkunc and Art. Junkunc’s generosity towards American
never managed to secure this spectacular fragment. museums also extended to bequests, with gifts from
It was sold at auction in July 1970 to fellow Chicago- his collection now housed in the Milwaukee Public
based collectors, James and Marilyn Alsdorf, later Museum, Wisconsin, and the Lowe Art Museum,
sold by Eskenazi in London in 1978, and is today in University of Miami, Florida, near his Coral Gables
the collection of the Cultural Relics Bureau in Beijing. summer home.
Nonetheless, Junkunc continued undaunted to form
one of the greatest collections of early Buddhist stone
sculpture ever assembled in the West.
By the early 1950s, Junkunc had amassed an
impressive collection of Chinese works of art which

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