Fine Art Asia 2016
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center
[Booth No. B10]
More than half of the 31 traditional paintings Kaikodo is showing from its New York gallery during Hong Kong’s Fine Arts Fair were acquired in Japan over the last twenty years and more, reflecting Kaikodo’s long presence and close ties there. The earliest work, the early 13th-century “Geese Descending on Sandbar,” represents the lyrical Southern Song style embraced and preserved by the Japanese collector over the centuries and was published in an exhibition catalogue of the Tokugawa Art Museum in 1991. Buddhist paintings of the Song-Yuan period that occupied a special place in Japanese art and religious circles is exemplified by an important later 13th-century painting, “The Water-Moon Guanyin” flanked by paintings of “Paired Ducks among Reeds,” a triptych from the Tamura Collection. Kaikodo is also showing works appealing to Chinese scholarly taste that include those by Qing dynasty artists working directly after old masters, such as the 18th-century Yangzhou painter Huang Zhen’s “Nine Pines after Ni Zan.” A dated painting with wide popular appeal is the 1764 “Palace by Mountain River” by Yuan Yao, an artist who popularized an imperial court style that celebrated grand palatial abodes within breathtaking landscape environments. While the website here showcases traditional paintings, a number of contemporary works will also be available by artists with whom Kaikodo has been most pleased to be associated.