Our present exhibition, “Embracing Antiquity,” the thirty-second since 1996, is intended to honor the twentieth anniversary of our opening for business in New York. As is usual for Kaikodo—the name meaning “Hall of Embracing Antiquity”—a wide range of objects and paintings are on offer, including works of art from China, Japan, Vietnam, and Korea, and paintings from China, Japan, and Korea, ranging in date from the 3rd millennium B.C. to the 21st century A.D. This range of media, styles, countries of origin, and aesthetic approaches is highly unusual outside of comprehensive auctions, and we are proud to acknowledge that we in fact are drawn to what has been created out of the box, to what is not the usual or the standard, whether it be a painting or a work of art, and such are among what we have acquired and offer now in this sale-exhibition.
In addition, we present a section on remembrances devoted to Wai-kam Ho, a close friend, exemplary scholar, and most enjoyable eccentric. Tributes to Wai-kam are offered here from family members, former colleagues, and those of us who still stand in awe of his intellectual achievements and extraordinary character. Another section is dedicated to remembrances of others that have been important to us here at Kaikodo and who passed away in 2015, including the beloved Marie-Helene Weill, Bruce Dayton, and Bill Clark. We are pleased to include in a separate section an essay by Richard Barnhart, formerly of Yale University and now resident of Friday Harbor, Washington, who examines a painting long attributed to the Yuan master Zhao Mengfu but here reattributed on very convincing grounds to Tang Di, a follower of the master. Another essay, by Kazuko Kameda-Madar, examines the work attributed to Ri Shubun, a 15th century Korean artist who immigrated to Japan in 1424, with special attention paid to a pair of landscapes offered here as catalogue no. 56. We are very grateful to both of these scholars for sharing with us their ideas and perception for how else will the field of connoisseurship continue to evolve and improve?
Credit for the information offered here devolves primarily on Mary Ann Rogers, who wrote all of the entries for the works of art as well as those for catalogue nos. 54 and 55 among the Chinese paintings and no. 58 among the Japanese. Carol Conover supplied exact descriptions of the works of art as well as of the painting by Gu Jianlong, no. 38. As always Yollie Rosales provided immeasurable assistance in the gallery in New York and Robert Lyman is responsible for producing this online exhibition and maintaining the website, among numerous other tasks, working with us in Hawaii. Our photographers, John Taylor and Dianne Dubler, again stepped up to the plate and provided all but a small number of images here.
Kaikodo/Huaigutang,“The Hall of Embracing Antiquity,” has been a great pleasure for all of us over these decades, allowing us to acquire whatever we have been drawn to on the basis of aesthetic beauty or art-historical importance, and we can do no more than recommend a similar approach to all of our clients, for their pleasure as well as their benefit.
Howard Rogers – Onomeabay, March 2016