About Us
The Kapoor name has been associated with fine antiquities from India ever since my father, Shri Parshotam Ram Kapoor, settled in Jalandar, Punjab, after the separation of India and Pakistan in 1947. My father moved his gallery to New Delhi in 1962 to facilitate the ever-growing South Asian art market, and sold thousands of items to the museums in India. I learned and worked alongside him until I left for New York City in 1974. I opened my own gallery in 1976 on Madison Avenue and have been in business ever since.
Art of the Past, Inc., specializes in fine antiquities from South, Central, and Southeast Asia. The collection ranges in date from the third-millennium B.C.E. to the early twentieth-century. The approximately five thousand items are especially strong in sculptures and paintings. Over the years, the company has expanded its field of interest to include other areas such as the decorative arts and contemporary painting. However, the emphasis of the collection remains on quality, originality of expression, and art historical importance.
The gallery has sold to some of the most celebrated public and private collections in the world. These include The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco; The Art Institute, Chicago; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond; Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu; Musée des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris; Museum fűr Indische Kunst, Berlin; The National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; and the Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore.
I am very grateful to have worked in this trade my entire life. It has given me not only a livelihood, but also unparalleled pleasure. I thank all of my clients, friends, and colleagues for all of their support over the past three decades.