.jpg?w=1)
It is impossible to think of the collection presented in these catalogues without conjuring up memories of the extraordinary couple who created it and used it so well during their lives. First and foremost are memories of happy gatherings and lively discussions, with Johnny and Pauline soliciting opinions on the merits of a particular Chinese "pot" which was unceremoniously handed around the leather-topped round table (and often taking opposite sides in the debate). They loved Chinese art and they generously welcomed into their home all who shared their enthusiasm. They not only formed one of the greatest collections of Chinese art ever assembled outside of China, they also led the way to a wider understanding and appreciation of Asian art in America. Their abiding interest in Asian art was an important part of their lives throughout their long marriage, but it would be a mistake to think that collecting Asian Art was the sole focus of their lives.
Pauline Baerwald Falk graduated from Smith College in 1932 and went on to the School of Social Work at Columbia University. Myron S. Falk Jr.--Johnny to all his friends--graduated from Yale in 1928 and earned a B.S. in engineering at M.I.T. in 1929. They were married in 1935 and set off on an extended tour of Western Europe, Russia, and Poland. It was a honeymoon trip, but activities in Europe were numerous and varied, including visits to museums and monuments, visits with family and tours of farm communities, hospitals and schools in the newly formed Soviet Union, as well as visits to ghettos in Poland and Eastern Europe. Pauline's father, Paul Baerwald, was an executive board member of the Joint Distribution Committee, an agency chartered to provide refugee services for European Jews who were victims of pogroms and persecution throughout Russia and Europe, and Pauline was an active volunteer working for the J.D.C. in Europe and America throughout World War II. After the war she was one of the founders of the National Refugee Service (now the New York Association for New Americans) as well as the Jewish Social Services Association. She maintained an active commitment to charitable social work throughout her life, also serving on the board of the Jewish Social Service Association and as president of the Jewish Family Services, a predecessor agency of the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services. Pauline also believed strongly in the importance of a good liberal education. She was a founder of the New Lincoln School in Manhattan, working long hours there on a volunteer basis. Johnny too was actively involved in a number of diverse philanthropic activities throughout his life, in addition to his professional career as an investment banker. He served as a director of the New York Foundation and Hebrew Technical Institute, he was a board member of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, and Bennington College. Johnny and Pauline lived in New York City all their lives and raised three children: Patricia, Michael and Nancy.
In the field of Asian art, Johnny and Pauline Falk were not only prodigious collectors, they also were very persuasive and effective advocates for Asian art and culture in America. It is important to remember that in the 1930s most Americans knew very little about Asia, and the average American's attitude toward Asia was more likely to be based on misconceptions and prejudices than on experience or facts. Johnny and Pauline were among the founders of many Asian art organizations in America during the years following World War II and the Korean War, when recent memories and current politics overshadowed any attempt to educate or involve Americans in Asian art. They were founding members of the China House Gallery at the China Institute in 1949, and they participated in the establishment of the Archives of Chinese Art in 1945, a scholarly journal which continues to be published today by the Asia Society as the Archives of Asian Art. They were strong supporters of the Asia Society, where Johnny was a trustee and served as chairman of the Friends of Asia House Gallery for nearly twenty years. They were among the earliest participants in the Japan Society, and they were founding members of the Friends of Japan House Gallery in 1971. Johnny Falk helped to found the Roebling Society of the Brooklyn Museum, and the Falks were among the founders of the Friends of Asian Art at Brooklyn, as well as the Friends of Far Eastern Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Johnny was also a trustee of the Research Laboratory of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from 1966 until his death. The Research Laboratory was a visiting committee of scientists whose premise was the "Application of Science to the Examination of Art", which included all fields of art, not only Chinese. Johnny was introduced to the group by Eugene and Paul Bernat, brothers, and great collectors of Chinese art in Boston. In 1950 Johnny and Pauline attended a meeting of the Oriental Ceramic Society of London, and a few years later Johnny became the O.C.S. representative in North America, a post he held for more than thirty years.
Johnny and Pauline were introduced to Chinese art early in life. Johnny's father collected Chinese porcelains to decorate his New York home. In keeping with the taste of the times, most of his pieces were Kangxi blue and white porcelains. On his sixtieth birthday he divided his porcelains among his three children. Many years later Johnny and Mildred gave many of those Kangxi porcelains to the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to be permanently installed, together with many other porcelains, to re-create the original appearance of the Whistler Peacock Room there.
Pauline was introduced to Chinese art by her uncle Emil Baerwald, who took her to the Metropolitan Museum to see the Bishop Collection and on visits to Yamanaka and Co. on Fifth Avenue, where Mr. Shirai would take them into the private rooms to see the rarest pieces. Uncle Emil lived in Europe, and as an active collector of Chinese ceramics he had become friendly with leading Chinese art collectors there, including George Eumorfopoulos and Sir Percival David. He provided introductions to English private collectors when Pauline and Johnny visited England in 1950 on an extended tour of Europe, a trip that greatly influenced their development as collectors and active participants in the world of Asian art, providing experiences and friendships that stayed with them throughout their lives.
In later years, whenever Pauline was asked to tell the story of how the collection was formed, the first thing she would mention was their trip to China in 1937. Although they had acquired a number of Chinese ceramics already before then, she would say that they still were not collectors at the start of that trip, they were buying Chinese ceramics simply because they were "newlyweds with a large house to furnish."
They took the new air route to China, setting out on a flying boat, the Clipper, from San Francisco to Manila. There was no air service for the next leg of the journey, so they sailed into Amoy, and from there they flew on another, smaller seaplane into Hong Kong. They toured China for several weeks, beginning their journey by train up to Canton and on to Changsha. They found that they couldn't get a berth on a boat up the Yangtze River (the river was too low), so they made reservations to fly up the river to Chungking in a small four-passenger seaplane, which made several stops to refuel and deliver mail along the way. After they became friendly with the Chinese pilots, they asked if a closer view of the gorges might be possible. The pilots were happy to oblige, flying right down into the Yangtze gorges, following the course of the river, with the cliffs rising above their heads on either side for a view described as "something glorious" by Pauline in a letter written the next day. They arrived in Chungking and explored the city in rickshaws and sedan chairs.
The next stop was Shanghai, where they were greeted by their new friend K. C. Chung, who they had met on the Clipper flight from San Francisco. A letter sent home from Shanghai recounted their first night out with K. C. and his companion (who later became his wife), described by Pauline as "the most attractive Mrs. Kan." The evening began at Ciro's, "the newest and most elegant dinner and cabaret spot in town; a whim of Victor Sassoon's and run by the man who used to run the Jockey Club in Berlin," where by Pauline's account the "crowd [was] as good looking as the Persian Room," and they "dined, drank and danced exceedingly well." Pauline's letter goes on to say:
"... stayed there quite late, then went to a taxi dancing place. Huge, very good looking ballroom with tables all around. Many couples there, but tables around the floor reserved for hostesses, all Chinese girls, although the floor show girls are all Russians and all the music and musicians pure U.S.A. Most amusing, and very respectable to watch--and Johnny says he never danced with such a good dancer in his life. Ended up at an all night place known as Delmonte's. Hostesses there all Russians, and very nice too. The situation quite amusing, the crowd varied and quite likkered. I'll have you know we didn't get home until 4:30."
They went on to Peking and saw all the famous sites--visiting the newly opened "Forbidden City," making an excursion to the Great Wall riding on donkeys from the nearest train station, and picnicking by the Ming tombs. Their itinerary in China was greatly facilitated by numerous letters of introduction provided by Pauline's uncle Ernst Baerwald, who was living in Tokyo, and other family and friends at home. The U.S. secretary of war gave them a letter of introduction to the American military attaché in Peking at the time, Colonel Joseph Stilwell. They had a dinner with the Owen Lattimores (a leading China expert in the U.S. embassy, later attacked by Senator Joseph McCarthy), and they met Edgar Snow (the author of Red Star over China). They also were given introductions to leading art dealers, including Otto Burchard, Mathais Komor and a German dealer named Plaut, from whom they purchased a number of archaic bronzes. It was during their first visit to China that Johnny and Pauline began buying early Chinese pottery and works of art and rapidly developed their personal preference for the clean and simple forms and glazes of the Song dynasty wares rather than the more ornate and decorative Chinese porcelains that they had grown up seeing in their parents' homes and that still were very much the prevailing fashion in Europe and America.
During the war years there naturally was much less time for art and collecting. Johnny was a commissioned officer in the army, posted to the Pentagon ordinance section, applying his engineering and management skills to the task of munitions production. The Falks moved to Washington, D.C., and occasionally came back to New York on weekends. Their collecting activity was drastically curtailed, but they kept in touch with the New York dealers in Asian art, including Komor, who had emigrated from Peking. In the summer of 1944 Johnny saw in the New York Times an announcement that Chinese works of art seized by the U.S. Government Alien Property Custodian as property belonging to enemy aliens was to be offered at a sealed bid tender sale. The Chinese art had been sent to America before the outbreak of the war by Dr. Burchard, the Peking dealer, who was a German national. The most important item was a colossal stone relief, which was broken into many pieces and lying on the floor but was known to be from the famous Buddhist cave temples at Longmen in Henan province. It was a figure of the Buddhist saint known as Vimalakirti, carved in the late Northern Wei period (early 6th century). The Falks knew about the early Buddhist stone sculptures at Longmen because they had recently been offered a small head from the Longmen caves by Mathais Komor. When they asked Komor about the large relief figure coming up for sale, he replied that he knew it well. In fact he said that he had stored it in his house in Peking before Burchard had sent it to America to offer it to the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, and he encouraged the Falks to bid for it. Several museums and collectors were aware of the sale, but only three bids were tendered. The Falks acquired the relief for $2,200, well above the next highest offer of $500, which was submitted by Harvard University. They sent the pieces to a restorer in New York, and, after it was properly assembled and mounted, they loaned it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was exhibited until 1946, when the Falks installed it in their home. The Vimalakirti relief was bequeathed last year to the Freer Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
The story of the acquisition of the Longmen Vimalakirti might give the impression that the Falk collection was formed at a time when buying opportunities were abundant and prices were low, and to some extent that might have been true of their early collecting years, but there always were problems of authenticity and cost and other serious obstacles to be overcome. The keys to their success were dedication, diligence and careful discrimination. When World War II was over, the Falks began collecting in earnest, visiting the New York art dealers nearly every weekend, but the outbreak of the Korean War followed by McCarthy era anticommunist crusades soon brought about an American embargo against the importation of anything made in China. The embargo was zealously enforced by the U.S. Customs Service. Exemptions could be procured for Chinese antiquities by special petition, if elaborate documentation could be provided, but it was a time-consuming, arduous, and uncertain process. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s-- their prime collecting years--the supply of Chinese art to New York was choked off by government decree, and even Chinese antiquities acquired from London auctions and dealers required sworn affidavits and documented provenance predating the Communist regime in China.
Whenever Pauline and Johnny were asked to tell the story of how their collection was formed, they always gave credit to the advice and assistance of good friends, dealers and scholars who helped them in many ways. The first name mentioned and the one given the greatest credit always was Alfred Salmony. Salmony had been a professor of East Asian art in Cologne before he fled Hitler's Germany and emigrated to America. He joined the faculty of Mills College in California, where one of his students happened to be Pauline's sister, Jane Baerwald. When Salmony moved to New York and began teaching at Vassar, Jane introduced him to Pauline and Johnny. He was immediately impressed by their enthusiasm for and affinity with Chinese art. Salmony went along with the Falks on their weekend visits to the art dealers on Madison Avenue, and it was through his tutelage and the direct experience of handling pieces available on the market that they began to "get serious," in Pauline's words. Salmony also provided introductions to scholars and collectors in Stockholm, which was a leading center for the study of Chinese art at that time because the King of Sweden was an avid sinologist and collector.
The Falks visited Sweden as part of an extended European tour in 1950. They met with all the leading Asian scholars and collectors in Stockholm, and Ovar Karlbeck accompanied them to Ekolsund Slott to see the Kempe collection of Chinese ceramics, gold and silver. They continued on to Paris, where they visited D. David-Weill (a partner of Pauline's father at Lazard Frères and a great collector of early Chinese art). They also met Calmann in Paris and were introduced to the Stoclets in Brussels. In Amsterdam they met with Visser and Tikoten. They went on to London, where they met with Sir Percival David, Mrs. Ivy Clark, Mr. and Mrs. Seligman, and many other leading collectors of Chinese art. At the British Museum they were given a tour of the collections and taken on a walk through the basement storage by Soame Jenyns; and they attended the Annual General Meeting of the Oriental Ceramic Society, where they met many more scholars and collectors. They also went to see Roger Bluett, H. R. N. Norton, Sparks and other London dealers. They traveled to Europe again in 1952, renewing and expanding their contacts with curators and collectors. In 1962 they were invited back to Sweden for a very special gathering to celebrate the sinologist King Gustavus VI of Sweden's eightieth birthday.
Pauline and Johnny traveled extensively all their lives, throughout Asia and around the world. One of their closest friends and a frequent traveling companion was Laurence Sickman, who was for many years the director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, after having lived in Peking before World War II. He had been hired by the founders of the Nelson-Atkins to go to Peking to acquire Chinese art for their new museum. He had earned a doctorate in Asian art at Harvard, and after more than a decade in Peking his knowledge of the market was as strong as his scholarship. Sickman often would invite Johnny Falk to accompany him on visits to dealers when he was in New York, and he spent many evenings discussing particular pieces over cocktails at the Falks. Johnny and Pauline went on several trips to Japan, Taiwan and elsewhere in the Far East with Sickman, benefiting from his special access and extensive contacts with private museums and collectors. They also traveled through Egypt, Iran, Turkey and Greece, and they managed to find Chinese collections to see at nearly every destination. In Istanbul they saw the Yuan and Ming porcelains in the Topkapi palace--many of them still stacked in the basement of the kitchen wing--and in Iran they went to see the early Chinese blue and white porcelains at the Ardebil Shrine. In Athens they found many fine Chinese ceramics from the Eumorfopoulos collection at the Benaki Museum, and in Cairo in 1964 Johnny spotted a Ming blue and white bowl in a booth at the Khan Khalili Bazaar and bought it for $84. He carried the bowl to London, where he asked the Chinese art dealer Roger Bluett to provide an expert opinion and a sworn affidavit stating that the bowl was an antique that had not been made or owned by a Communist. U.S. Customs rejected Bluett's affidavit, and Johnny finally had to enlist the aid and sworn testimony of his Yale classmate John Pope, who was director of the Freer Gallery at the time, to gain permission to bring the bowl into the United States.
Pauline and Johnny remembered well the good times they had in London, Stockholm, Tokyo and all around the world, meeting with enthusiastic Asian art collectors, curators and dealers. They fondly recalled the pleasures and the real knowledge they gained from these encounters, especially when they had direct access to the ceramics and other works of art. These intimate encounters and shared experiences, with the actual works of art immediately at hand, were both the pleasure and the purpose of collecting for them, because they were the process by which real understanding and a deeper appreciation of Asian art were made possible. The Falks made the same experience possible for many others by generously making their own collection available, and they did so with the greatest hospitality and genuine good will. They challenged all their visitors to participate in a frank discussion and a free exchange of information, ideas and opinions. The only goal was mutual enlightenment and shared enjoyment. Pauline was a natural hostess who encouraged a lively discussion--at times extremely lively. She was never shy about expressing her opinion, and she was always ready to listen to yours. A spirit of mutual respect and good will was always maintained, while wishy-washy opinions and simple flattery were resolutely discouraged. There was no room for pretension at the Falks, but there always was wide tolerance for any sincere opinion or reasonable proposal.
The Falk collection was well known to scholars and curators around the world by the end of the 1950s, and it continued to become larger and better and more famous in the following decades, yet it never was the subject of any major museum exhibition. That was not by chance, it was by choice. The Falks were genuinely modest about their personal collection as a manifestation of their own particular taste or talents, while at the same time they were enthusiastic about each individual work of art in their collection. Although they politely, but firmly, declined all proposals for an exhibition devoted exclusively to their collection, they always gave a sympathetic hearing to any curator who asked permission to borrow specific items for an interesting show. In fact, Chinese works of art from the Falk collection have been shown in more than twenty-five different museum exhibitions prepared by leading curators and scholars. Asian art from the Falk collection has been exhibited on loan in more than three dozen museums across America and around the world, and a select group of the finest Chinese works of art from the collection has been bequeathed to six different museums.
Whenever anyone had the temerity to ask Johnny and Pauline what they planned to "do" with the collection "eventually," the reply was always the same: it was their firm intention to put it all back on the market so that others could have the same opportunity to collect that they had enjoyed. This catalogue is the vehicle for making their collection available to collectors around the world, just as they wanted it to be.
The Falks always were ready to share their collection with individuals and groups, especially student groups. They welcomed college classes and even a few high school classes. Graduate students at N.Y.U. were frequently given access to the collection, and the Falks donated the majority of their Asian art reference books and periodicals--more than 7,000 volumes--to the N.Y.U. Institute of Fine Arts Library.
In their later years they did not slow down or reduce their commitments, they actually increased the amount of time and energy devoted to Asian art. When China finally "opened up" again in the late 1970s, Johnny and Pauline were ready to go as soon as possible. Their first trip back to China since 1937 was in 1979 with a tour group lead by Edmund Capon, then a curator of Chinese art at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Ten years later, when Capon had become director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Johnny and Pauline flew to Australia to attend the opening of his new wing devoted to Asian art. The Falks were back in China again in 1981 on a tour that I led to Jingdezhen and other kiln sites and museums. Their room was often the site of a cocktail party at the end of the day, and their table at dinner was always the most lively. The ceramics specialists in Shanghai were so impressed with Johnny's knowledge and interest in ceramics technology and glazes that they invited him to participate in an international conference on Chinese ceramics at the Shanghai museum the following year, so Johnny and Pauline were in China again in 1982. They returned twice more, making their last visit in 1989, just three years before Johnny died in April 1992 at the age of eighty-five.
I will always remember the many evenings spent at the Falks, usually in a crowd of Chinese art "types", revisiting the collection, debating some new attribution, gossiping about recent developments or worrying about the future of Chinese art connoisseurship in America. Like so any others who benefited from their encouragement and guidance and friendship, the first time I went to visit I went to see the collection, but I went back many times because of the collectors, not because of the collection.
The Falks followed an old tradition of inviting visitors to sign a guest book and to make comments if the spirit moved them to do so, just for pleasant memories. The names in that guest book include almost every Asian art curator, collector, scholar, dealer, auctioneer and museum director of the modern era. Many of them appear in the book more than once, and some of them appear first as students, later as curators and still later as museum directors. Johnny and Pauline attracted all of the Asian art crowd simply by doing what came naturally to them--pursuing the pleasures of intellectual inquiry and old-fashioned connoisseurship as a social activity. They not only created a superb collection of Asian art, they also attracted an extraordinary circle of friends. By their generosity and the way they lived, they brought out the best in us all.
James J. Lally
Johnny and Pauline were staunch friends and supporters of all serious study of Chinese art. From my first visit to New York in 1962 onward, I found with them an ever warm reception in which the privilege of seeing and handling their treasures was just a part.
Among my last memories of them both is the trip to Shanghai in 1989 for the exhibition of the Hu collection, and the subsequent overnight journey we made by train to Jingdezhen to study the excavated porcelains from the Ming imperial factory. Their cheerfully total engagement in every aspect of this, and many another pilgrimage of enlightenment, is typical of a rare spirit which many of us will gratefully remember in the pair of them.
John Ayers
It was sometime in the 1960s that Judith and I first met the Falks, but we really got to know them at the International Symposium on the Arts of Asia to celebrate the opening of the Avery Brundage Wing at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, in the autumn of 1966. Ten years later, I was one of the half a dozen members of Christie's London who came to New York in October 1976 to plan and open the auction rooms at Delmonico's, and the Falks were very hospitable at their townhouse at East 66th Street and also at their country house on Ocean Avenue, Elberon, New Jersey. That winter was very cold, and Johnny admitted that he did not own an overcoat, and did not need one!
We made two wonderful expeditions to China with the Falks. The first was in September 1979. We went to Canton, Chengdu, then to Xi'an, where we saw the opening to the public of the Terracotta army of Qin Shihuang. We were in the Palace Museum in Peking, and the director, hearing us discussing the relative merits of the Yongle example with those of the Xuande date, was astounded. At that time Western scholarship was well ahead of that in China. Since then things have evened out. The second visit was with the Oriental Ceramic Society in October 1988, when we explored the kiln sites of Dehua and Luhuaping. Johnny, whilst negotiating a narrow path, slipped eighteen feet into a paddy field and disappeared into the mud. Despite his age, he carried on unphased. In Jingdezhen we were one of the first groups to handle the Imperial Ming reconstructed shards. Both these trips cemented our friendship with Johnny and Pauline, who turned out to be the best traveling companions.
Johnny Falk was for many years the U.S. representative for the Oriental Ceramic Society, and the Falks' collection of Chinese ceramics and works of art is perhaps the last one left in private hands that reflects the taste that made its members the leaders in the field. While at their East 66th Street house the collection was integrated in the decoration, the apartment on Park Avenue was designed round the collection. It is a collection that will be of interest to those who did not know it when Johnny and Pauline were alive as well as to those of us who had the privilege and pleasure of knowing it and now tinged with sadness that we can no longer discuss points that arise with them.
Since the arrival of large quantities of similar objects on the market in the last twenty years, some of the more usual pieces may not appear as exciting as they seemed to us a quarter of a century ago, but when we look closely we will see that each piece has some special quality that takes it above the average. To those who worry about the extraordinary quality of the fakes and forgeries the Chinese are now producing, the fact that these objects were purchased before the imitations were made and that the collection has been critically viewed by most of the great authorities of the world should engender confidence.
Anthony du Boulay
Pauline and Johnny Falk personified Chinese art collecting during the second half of the twentieth century. Known throughout the world of Chinese art aficionados, they were incredibly unpretentious and gracious, opening their home and their hearts to visitors from around the world. Their living room was frequently the setting for lively discussions that were always on the cutting edge. Primarily fascinated with early ceramics, they exhibited a charming tolerance of those of us who were ceramically challenged and happily encouraged our other interests in ancient bronzes and Buddhist sculpture. They were extremely knowledgeable collectors, and the pieces they selected were often brave choices at that time. Their research library was fantastic and became an invaluable resource for us all. Without their support and encouragement, many of us in the field of Chinese art today would not be here, and we owe a tremendous debt to these two amazingly enlightened people. For me personally, Johnny babysat me through my first show and catalogue, the Art of Eastern Zhou at the China Institute in 1962, teaching me to use my eyes and have courage to write what I believed, no matter what other people said or thought.
Emma C. Bunker
Asian Art Department
The Denver Art Museum
There was something wonderfully irrepressible about Johnny and Pauline Falk. In a world of pious concerns and shallow social strivings, they stood out as absolute icons of resolute independence. Their apartment in New York was a place of surprising and slightly paradoxical stillness, for Johnny and Pauline were anything but oases of human calm and tranquility. But it was a place that echoed their curiosity, their generosity, their energy and their enthusiasm for the arts of China, qualities that were for decades loved and appreciated by all who knew them. I was forever entertained by their innate boisterousness, which seemed such a marvelous contradiction with the quietness of the Song ceramics that filled the wall cases of the apartment. Johnny and Pauline were two hugely invigorating and life-affirming people whose company was always terrific and whose eye for and love of the arts of China was always so stimulating.
Edmund Capon
Director
The Art Gallery of New South Wales
Sydney
Johnny and Pauline Falk were a great tag team for students and collectors of Chinese art. Where Johnny would leave off with one of his theories about some technical ceramic problem we were trying to solve, Pauline would pick up entertaining you with her direct wit and wisdom. The Falks were my link to the great collectors of ceramics in England. Their stories about dealers, collectors, museums and auctions were so vivid and often in stereo, so that I began to feel as if I even knew the taste of some of those grand old people. I first visited the Falks when I was a graduate student. For my generation it was inspiring to see people living with objects. I really got to know them on a wonderful monthlong trip to kiln sites in China organized by Jim Lally in 1981. We climbed shard heaps in Jingdezhen. We made moon cakes out of Song dynasty ceramic molds at their country house. There seemed always to be a party going on at their apartment, and I visited often. Johnny and Pauline were generous with their knowledge, but they never published their collection. They were kind and straightforward. I was fortunate to be their friend. If only they could have seen this catalogue. I can just hear them now.
Carol Conover
Chinese Works of Art
Kaikodo
It was Laurence Sickman, the consummate scholar-connoisseur and distinguished director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum, who introduced me to Pauline and Johnny Falk. My initial visit to the Falks' Manhattan townhouse with Larry, in the fall of 1967, was a heady experience since it provided an opportunity to study their Chinese collection together with three people who subsequently became my close friends. I recall vividly how gracious Pauline, Johnny and Larry were in sharing their views on various aspects of traditional connoisseurship. They also reminisced - mainly for my benefit - about their experiences with legendary art dealers, such as C. T. Loo and Yamanaka Sadajiro, and described the circumstances surrounding particularly important acquisitions.
I have to admit I was surprised, during that first visit, to find that Pauline's and Johnny's opinions about some antiquities differed markedly and that their discussions occasionally became quite animated. When the atmosphere was particularly tense, Larry simply lit a cigarette and waited a few minutes before saying another word. I later realized one should expect a spirited exchange of views when talking about Chinese art with Pauline and Johnny; they were avid collectors and, understandably, were eager to share their opinions. Their enthusiasm for all aspects of Chinese art prompted me to learn as much as possible about people who played a major role in increasing Western awareness of Chinese culture. Pauline and Johnny were among the earliest collectors to understand the significance of this kind of information, which is increasingly difficult to acquire, yet which adds immeasurably to the understanding of Chinese traditional connoisseurship, as well as to an appreciation of individual objects. I am indebted to Pauline and Johnny for their willingness, over the years, to share their knowledge and experiences.
One of the Chinese objects we first discussed in 1967 was the Northern Wei dynasty sculpture then displayed over the sofa in the Falks' living room. When they moved to an apartment, the sculpture was installed in the foyer with special lighting to emphasize the subtle modeling of the figure. This early 6th-century limestone bas-relief from the central Binyang cave at Longmen, Henan province, depicts Vimalakirti, a wealthy Indian layman. On the opposite wall of the central Binyang cave is an image of Manjusri, the Buddhist bodhisattva of Wisdom, with whom Vimalakirti is said to have had a celebrated debate on the doctrine of non-duality. Visitors to the Buddhist cave at Longmen would have seen Vimalakirti high above the well-known reliefs depicting processions of the Northern Wei emperor and empress, now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
Johnny and Pauline told me how they purchased the bas-relief at an auction in Manhattan during World War II. They admitted that they were able to acquire the sculpture only because most Chinese art specialists were serving in the military and, consequently, were unaware of the auction. Since the figure was in pieces, Johnny and Pauline hired a Japanese restorer to assemble the limestone fragments on a plaster support and to fill in the missing portions of the composition. The final stage of that painstaking restoration had to wait until the early 1980s, almost forty years later, when they acquired the fragment that forms the tip of Vimalakirti's beard.
During one of my later visits, as Pauline, Johnny and I stood in front of the Vimalakirti sculpture and talked about our first meeting, they told me of their decision to bequeath the bas-relief to the Freer Gallery. It was a characteristically magnanimous gift, and I am delighted that Vimalakirti will provide an enduring reminder of the friendship of these outstanding collectors of Chinese art.
Thomas Lawton
Senior Research Associate
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Smithsonian Institution
The Johnny Falks were a recurring event on our frequent trips to New York. They were regular fixtures at events at the Asia Society, the China Institute and the Metropolitan Museum. The collection grew before our eyes - new pieces and also old classics of Chinese pottery and porcelains that we all held in the highest regard. It was never a social event, rather a most informal seminar on the endless problems of Chinese ceramics.
We recall these halcyon days with great regard and were honored to be there and to learn the "finest points" of the discipline of the genre. And they were always eye openers for all of the most difficult and problematical questions associated with our discipline. Would that we could recall the flavor that they gave their pieces. Would that those days were still with us again. True collectors, warm hosts, erudite scholars, they live again in our memories.
Dr. and Mrs. Sherman E. Lee.
Johnny Falk was a rare breed of collector. Not only did he have an excellent "eye," but his information about the material he collected matched that of many art historians and dealers in the field. Johnny and his wife, Pauline, never missed an opportunity to enlarge their knowledge about the art they acquired. Whether it was a single lecture, a symposium, or a field trip halfway around the world, the Falks were invariably in attendance. The latest books, exhibition catalogues and archaeological reports could always be found in the Falk library. And the most learned scholars in the field could be found at their dinner table.
Johnny and Pauline Falk surrounded themselves with wonderful objects. They loved and understood their art. They were connoisseurs who welcomed the opportunity to share the enjoyment and knowledge of their treasures with others. These exceptional people were indeed very special collectors.
Suzanne G. Valenstein
Department of Asian Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Johnny and Pauline were like parents to me. I was introduced to them in New York in 1970 by the late Hsio-yen Shih, who was a curator of the Far Eastern Department at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. At the time I was working as a curatorial assistant under Dr. Shih, and Johnny and I had much to talk about because we had so much in common. I remember that we once talked until two o'clock in the morning.
In 1971 I had an opportunity to pursue my graduate work at Harvard University to study under the late professor Max Loehr. Johnny and Pauline not only supported me financially during my graduate years, but they also gave me moral support throughout my career. They were always so kind to me and my family. They made a great contribution to the furtherance of Asian studies in the United States, thanks to their love of Chinese ceramics.
I miss them very much, and I will always remember them.
Yutaka Mino
Director
Osaka Municipal Museum of Art
I originally met Johnny and Pauline Falk when I was twenty-one and a graduate student. Typical of Johnny and Pauline, they immediately took me under their wing, as they did with so many other young scholars in the field of Asian art. They shared their experiences, enthusiasm and collection with me and some of my fellow students. As a curator at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, I often saw the Falks, who were active participants in the museum's Roebling Society and Asian Art Council (1967-2000). I also came to know their daughter Patricia well when she was officer of Government and Community Relations there.
The Falks and their exemplary collection have been instrumental in introducing generations of scholars and collectors to Chinese art in America. Although many people were acquainted with the Falks, and legions of students visited their home and studied their collection, few may know the tremendous impact they have had on generations of leaders in the curatorial, conservation, and academic communities. Their collection will soon be dispersed, but their legacy of scholarship and community that so marked their life will be a lasting contribution to the field of Chinese art.
Amy G. Poster
Curator and Chair
Department of Asian Art
Brooklyn Museum of Art
Passionate about Chinese Art? Planning a trip to New York from wherever your headquarters might be? From Hong Kong, London, Sydney, Kansas City, Tokyo, or maybe Istanbul? Better call up Johnny and Pauline right away to make a date. They'll fit you right in, even if things are hectic. They will be glad to see you. And you, them.
Initially, we were all drawn to the Falks' home by collections - by the pots, the bronzes and whatever else fell within the web of their widely ranging curiosity. The pots mainly range in date from the middle of the first millennium to the 14th-15th centuries. Displayed easily as part of the furniture of life, they were always at hand, ready for renewed dialogue with whomever would give them heed of a close look. The Falks' choices were personal and reflected their penchant for shape and glaze texture. Given the riches of today's market offerings in Chinese ceramics, it is easy to forget that the most meager of markets prevailed when the Falks made their purchases one by one. A selection of Ming blue and white, distinguished by firm muscular drawing, by clarity of color and coherency of shape provides the finale to the Falks' ceramics collection. A stunning pair of Shang bronze jue and a large chunk of stone sculpture from the Binyang cave at Longmen humbles us all as reminders of the Falks' acumen across a spectrum of expressive possibilities.
But it was, in the end, the Falks themselves who drew us back time and again. Theirs was not an exclusive salon, precious with pedantry or pretension. It spanned generations and oceans. Like the Falks themselves, it was thoroughly honest and gave room for neophyte collector, aspiring graduate student, and accomplished expert of legendary renown to share knowledge and insight elbow to elbow as members of an extended family. Johnny treated you as an equal, sure in his unanswerable questions that you knew more than he and that you among all others had the latest, best answer to the latest, most burning question.
Oh, dear. It's Johnny, and he's about to ask me another impossible question. I know I won't be able to answer it. My ignorance must be abysmal. Johnny won't mind, though.
In all, thirty years of questions yielded him only a fraction of good answers from me. And yet, so much of what I have come to know about Chinese ceramics lies in those unanswered questions posed so easily in what was an unassuming studio of vast understanding.
Marc F. Wilson
Director/CEO
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
NEOLITHIC AND EARLY CERAMICS
Two Small Early Pottery Vessels
NEOLITHIC AND WARRING STATES PERIOD
Details
Two Small Early Pottery Vessels
Neolithic and Warring States period
One a neolithic red pottery jar, Machang type, Majiayao culture, 3rd millenium BC, painted in black and dark red with an undulating band on the lower body and diamond shapes of fishnet pattern on the neck, with a pair of strap handles, the interior of the neck also painted with decorative bands; the other a small bulbous grey pottery jar, Warring States period, impressed with a fine mesh pattern and applied with two S-scrolls below the sharply delineated edge of the mouth rim
5 3/4 and 3 3/4in. (14.6 and 9.5cm.) across
Falk Collection nos. 208 and 209. (2)
Neolithic and Warring States period
One a neolithic red pottery jar, Machang type, Majiayao culture, 3rd millenium BC, painted in black and dark red with an undulating band on the lower body and diamond shapes of fishnet pattern on the neck, with a pair of strap handles, the interior of the neck also painted with decorative bands; the other a small bulbous grey pottery jar, Warring States period, impressed with a fine mesh pattern and applied with two S-scrolls below the sharply delineated edge of the mouth rim
5 3/4 and 3 3/4in. (14.6 and 9.5cm.) across
Falk Collection nos. 208 and 209. (2)
Provenance
Warring states bowl: Mathias Komor, New York, August 1944.
Exhibited
Neolithic jar: Selections of Chinese Art from Private Collections in the Metropolitan Area, New York, China House Gallery, China Institute in America, 1966 - 1967, no. 1.