The Art of Opium Antiques
Steven Martin
Photographs by Paul Lakatos

ISBN: 978-974-9511-22-0
2007, 210x210 mm, 128pp, 500g
100 color illus., 625 Baht

The Art of Opium Antiques explores an aspect of opium that has largely been ignored—the art and accoutrements associated with opium smoking that reached a pinnacle in nineteenth-century China and in Chinese communities abroad, from Saigon to Singapore to San Francisco. For a culture as ancient and rich as that of China, it should come as no surprise that once opium smoking was introduced, the custom would develop its own uniquely Chinese paraphernalia. Over the span of four hundred years, the smoking of opium in China evolved from simple tools and techniques to sophisticated accoutrements. Richly illustrated with one hundred photographs of the author’s antique collection along with ten rarely seen historical photographs, The Art of Opium Antiques reveals the remarkable artistry of opium-smoking paraphernalia, including elaborate opium pipes, delicate opium lamps, ornate pipe-bowls, and myriad accoutrements once used for smoking the narcotic. These visually stunning and eminently collectible relics are wonderfully evocative of the romantic Orient of old.

Steven Martin, a native of California, has been traveling and collecting in Asia since 1981. His collection of antique opium paraphernalia is one of the world’s most comprehensive. He has written articles about opium for both the Associated Press and Time.

Australian-born Paul Lakatos has been based in Asia since the mid-1980s and has photographed a wide range of subjects. His work can be viewed at www.paullakatos.com.

Seven Oaks Magazine
In-Depth

‘This Year in Art Books, Broadly defined’
December 19, 2007
George Fetherling           

One important fact about the book is that examples are from the collection of a single individual, an artist named Bradford Edwards, thus validating the reassertion of connoisseurship as well as the role of independent scholars. Steven Martin, another solitary American collector (and independent scholar to boot), is the author of The Art of Opium Antiques. His large collection of opium scales and weights, pipes, porcelain pillows and the like, is one of the most comprehensive in existence. Opium items too are usually reproductions made for the tourist market, particularly in Thailand, but the examples photographed here by Paul Lakatos are genuine. They are also very often beautifully designed and made, they may tend towards the ornate rather than the clean minimalist approach, but in their way they call to mind an almost Japanese view of utilitarian objects (which is what opium gear was in East Asian cultures until comparatively recent times). Martin’s text is measured, clear and incredibly well informed. The Art of Opium Antiques comes from Silkworm Books, the most professional of the surprisingly numerous small English-language publishing houses in Thailand. It’s distributed in North America by the University of Washington Press (US$27.50 paper)