Collectors, curators, scholars, and Asian art enthusiasts from around the world convened for Asia Week New York 2011 in March—nine days of exhibitions, private sales, public auctions, special events, and fund-raising, spending more than $250 million on Asian art. Complementing Asian exhibitions at 18 New York-area museums and cultural institutions were thousands of ancient through contemporary Asian works of art at 5 leading auction houses and at the venues of 34 Asian art specialists exhibiting in New York. Dealers from the U.S. and abroad reported double and triple the attendance over last year with strong sales to collectors and institutions based in the United States, Europe, Hong Kong, and mainland China with many works on reserve by museums.
Asia Week New York 2011 sales highlights include:
• Showing The John Menke Collection of Vietnamese Ceramics, Zetterquist Galleries announced that the entire exhibition of 56 pieces had sold to one collector. “It is wonderful to see that this exquisitely designed collection will stay together,” said owner Eric Zetterquist.
• Of the 27 works of art offered by Oliver Forge & Brendan Lynch Ltd. of London in Indian Miniature Paintings from the Lloyd Collection, 25 sold or were placed on reserve (seven were reserved by museums).
• Reporting that 82 percent of the bronzes in the J.J. Lally & Co. catalogue for Ancient Chinese Bronzes were sold or placed on reserve, James Lally noted that the total sale is “in the millions.”
• MD Flacks Ltd. sold 70 percent of its exhibition, Scholar’s Trays, to collectors from Asia, Europe and the United States. The exhibition is thought to have been the first of its kind in the United States.
• “This is far-and-away the most successful exhibition of my 35-year career,” said Joan Mirviss of her exhibition, Birds of Dawn: Pioneers of Japan’s Sôdeisha Ceramic Movement, which took more than 10 years to organize. Of the 54 pieces in Joan B. Mirviss, Ltd.’s exhibition, 39 have sold at the time of this writing with several headed to important art museums. Two of the most outstanding pieces sold were by the Movement’s leader, Yagi Kazuo. Additionally, two paintings by artists Suzuki Kiitsu (1796-1858) and Kawanabe Kyôsai (1831-1889) selected to accompany the exhibition were sold.
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