Show Grows as Western Doors Open to Asian Decor

During the eight years Bill Caskey and Elizabeth Lees have produced the Arts of Pacific Asia Show, the demographics have changed. “Originally, the show mostly attracted serious collectors,” said Lees, “but in the last five years, we’ve noticed a big increase in decorators and people buying for their homes. I see more evidence of people decorating with Asian influences.”

The expanded audience has been healthy for business, she said. Whereas collectors tend to focus on their special fields (such as Chinese jades or Japanese bronzes), decorators are looking for all sorts of objects. “It has broadened the appeal and broadened the show,” she said.

Caskey and Lees expect between 5,000 and 7,000 visitors--including lots of decorators--to the eighth annual show, which starts tonight with a preview and runs through Sunday at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

The 65 exhibitors will show elegant furniture and ceremonial objects, sandstone sculpture, embroidered robes, snuff bottles, porcelain and woodblock prints from 2,000 years of Asian culture.

It’s an experience that will be augmented by a series of lectures including a session at 2 p.m. Friday on using Asian art in interior design. Los Angeles art and antiques dealer Sigrid Insull will focus on the versatility of Asian art.

“Selected pieces can enhance anyone’s home,” she said. “For instance, you can put a seated Buddha in almost any room, and it looks appropriate and adds serenity. Cambodian rain drums, which are quite rare now, make wonderful coffee tables. And a Japanese screen on a wall looks good with any kind of furniture.”

All lectures are free with show admission, which is $35 for tonight’s preview, from 6 to 9 p.m., and $10 for Friday through Sunday. One ticket covers the entire show. Info: (310) 455-2886.

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High Style: Nest magazine design writer Mitchell Owens will wrap up the 1999 lecture series next week sponsored by the Decorative Arts Council of the L.A. County Museum of Art. Owens will discuss decorator Stephane Boudin, master of classic French taste whose clients included the duke and duchess of Windsor and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy. Boudin presided over the Paris decorating firm Maison Jansen from 1923 until he died in 1967.

The lecture Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. in LACMA’s Bing Theater is open to the public. General admission is $15; Decorative Arts Council members, $10.

Connie Koenenn can be reached at [email protected].