In mid-December, Haughton International Fairs made an announcement that seemed just another grim reminder of the gathering business gloom: The London-based event organizer had canceled the 2009 edition of its International Asian Art Fair in New York, scheduled to run March 11 through 15 in the Seventh Regiment Armory.

For much of its 13-year existence, the fair had been central to New York’s annual Asia Week. In explaining their decision to give it a year’s hiatus, Anna Haughton tells Art+Auction through a spokesperson that she and her husband, Brian, had signed up only around 20 exhibitors, adding: "We are very saddened that so many dealers have been experiencing difficulties because of the current economic situation."

For most, however, the recession may have been just the final straw. Some dealers complain that the fair had been deteriorating for years. "I’m sad to lose it as it used to be, but it’s not a loss anymore," says the New York contemporary Chinese-art dealer Michael Goedhuis, a longtime participant.

One wave of departures occurred directly after 9/11, when the event was temporarily moved to a tent at Lincoln Center while the Armory returned briefly to its original function. After that, more dealers forsook the fair in favor of leasing some space in local galleries for a few weeks. The Brussels-based Gisèle Croës, who calls this year’s cancellation "very sad," exited after the 2002 edition because for the same money, she could rent more room for a longer time from another dealer, in the Fuller Building. Croës was one of the first three dealers to install a show in the East 57th Street gallery hub during Asia Week; this year over a dozen will be there.

"The moment big dealers started leaving, the decline was inevitable. [But] I don’t think the cancellation is a big blow to Asia Week," says Marcus Flacks, a co-owner of the New York gallery MD Flacks, who exhibited at the event for its first nine years. "Blaming economic conditions was a stupid thing to do. The fair did not have a viable amount of good dealers anymore."

Last year brought new complications. Organizers had moved the event from late to mid March, in part to coincide with the rescheduled Asian auctions at Christie’s and Sotheby’s. But the Armory was booked for the period by the Whitney Biennial, so they had to relocate to a nearby Christian Science church. There was a new round of defections, and the exhibitor count dropped from 54 to 31. Some, like the London Chinese-porcelain dealer S. Marchant & Son, decamped to the concurrent Arts of Pacific Asia Show. At the time, Stuart Marchant told Art+Auction that he switched because of the growing preponderance of contemporary art at the Haughton fair.

The increase in contemporary material is linked to other shifts in the field of traditional Asian art. "There are fewer and fewer objects, and so dealers like to deal privately, rather than at a fair," says the London dealer John Eskenazi, who this year will rent space from Adam Williams Fine Art Ltd. on East 80th Street instead.

"I’ve been a staunch supporter of the fair from the beginning, but there have been market changes and cultural changes," says Joan Mirviss, a New York dealer of Japanese art. She cites concerns about impending import and export restrictions tied to cultural property and to provenance issues: In January, China and the United States signed an agreement restricting the U.S. import of all Chinese objects dating from the Paleolithic period through the Tang Dynasty, and of monumental sculpture and wall art that is at least 250 years old. "This has been coming for a while," Mirviss says of the Haughton event’s problems. "If sales had been glorious, the fair would be filled with its original 60 exhibitors. I have been there every year and heard tales of woe — many reasons brought us to that."

According to the Haughtons, a group of past exhibitors fought to save their showcase and approached the Asia Society, the longtime beneficiary of the opening-night gala, about holding the event there. They were turned down. "It is a commercial activity that seemed at odds with our status as a nonprofit," says Melissa Chiu, the director of the Asia Society’s museum. The society will hold its own benefit on March 10.