An international roster of dealers and New York’s great museums and auction houses join in a weeklong celebration of the art of Asia.

For a fifth straight year, an international roster of dealers and New York’s great museums and auction houses join in a weeklong celebration of the art of Asia. Asia Week 2013 features 43 top-tier international galleries from Australia, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Thailand, and the U.S, all gathered from March 15-23 to present millions of dollars worth of rare treasures from the Far East. Some breathtaking art from the other side of the world is just a short drive or train ride away, and the knowledge and enthusiasm of the dealers will provide you with a great education about what you are able to see this week.

Whether your collecting interest is paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, textiles or jewelry, there are offerings to tempt any browser and stimulate the serious buyer of  things Asian, precious, and rare. From a gilded Buddha to a Tibetan scroll, there are many fine examples of the greatest forms of the Far East on view, and on offer.

Highly stylized and brilliantly colored paintings from India can be found in several galleries. The example at top, from the Kapoor Galleries on Madison Avenue, shows the Hindu deity Krishna performing one of the many amazing feats—lifting great mountains with a single finger–for which he is known.

While outstanding examples of Asian art and artisanship from centuries B.C. through the 19th Century are well represented, modern forms are also on view in abundance. In her beautifully appointed space on East 78th Street, dealer Joan B. Mirviss is celebrating the conclusion of her gallery’s thirty-fifth anniversary year with an amazing collection of twentieth century ceramics by Japanese masters of the medium. The show, which has been years in the making, celebrates the best of the best pieces of the modern era, and is titled, Seven Sages of Ceramics. Mirviss has created an opportunity for the public to see and touch pieces that are usually on view only in museum collections. Here’s one example by Kamoda Shoji, made in 1976:

Photograph: Kamoda Shoji (left),  Vyna St. Phard

Left: large vessel of blue enamel, Credit: . Right: Sidewalk art advertising Asia Week

The dealers are scattered in venues throughout the city (complete listing with map here), although most are clustered in the gallery-rich upper reaches of the East Side, from the Fifties through the Eighties. The Asia Week map has color-coded galleries according to the art represented in each one: red for Chinese, green for Indian, Himalayan and South East Asian, blue for Japanese and orange for Korean. Look for the Asia Week Decal on the sidewalk in front of participating galleries.

http://www.ilovefc.com/March-2013/Deities-Buddhas-and-Beauty/