An Eighteenth Century Chinese bowl fetched $19.67 million at Christie’s on November 28, setting a new world record price for Qing porcelain. Emerging from the riot of color, collage and sculpture that marked the fifth annual running of Art20 at the Seventh Regiment Armory, November 10–13 were new artists, new trends and new audiences for old names.
If you happen to be a resident of the town of Wethersfield, then the program for the Wethersfield Antiques Show must certainly read as a Who’s Who for the community. Few stones have been left unturned and all sorts of talent, businesses and organizations have joined the cause. For the second year Lowery Enterprises has hosted an Antiques & Design Show and Sale at the Turning Point Resort in the Oneida Indian nation. Held on November 4 and 5, the show emphasized the educational aspect of antiques collecting with two exhibitions. Original artwork from the cover of Spiderman #43, drawn by John Romita for the December 1966 issue and depicting Spidey locked in mortal combat with his arch enemy “The Rhino,” sold for $101,700 at a multi-estate sale held October 20–21 by Philip Weiss Auctions. Donald J. McInnis, 89, of Stuart, Fla., formerly of the New Hampshire seacoast area and Nashua, died Friday, November 24, at the Portsmouth Regional Hospital. Highly competitive bidding among the participants in R&R’s November auction yielded strong results across the entire range of categories, including a number of new auction records. Waterfowling and decoys are serious business in this part of the country and there are relatively few times during the course of the year when the enthusiasm level is higher than the first week of November. “While the precise route by which Civil War-era gubernatorial papers arrived in a shopping bag in Thomas Law Willcox’s stepmother’s closet remains a mystery, it appears the papers have been in the possession of the Law and Willcox families for over 140 years.” Many associate the 1960s with radical change in politics, civil rights and personal expression. American artistic glass making was also dramatically altered during this era when there was a shift from making artistic glass in the factory to making it in an artist’s studio. The Concord Museum is showing a special exhibition, “Needles & Haystacks: Pastoral Imagery in American Needlework from the Winterthur Collection,” through January 7. Jean-Honore Fragonard’s (1732–1860) accomplishments as a draftsman in the context of Eighteenth Century French art are the subject of a new exhibition, “Fragonard and the French Tradition,” at The Morgan Library & Museum on view through January 7. “My father was only 5 feet 6 inches, but he cast a long shadow in New Haven,” Nathaniel Kahn says in the opening minutes of
Culturally vibrant, cosmopolitan and ethnically diverse, Minneapolis and St Paul, with a population of about three million, are rich in visual and performing arts. Two local museums — the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center — are frontrunners. Antiques And The Arts Weekly announces early deadlines for advertising will be in effect for the January 5 edition.
Dean Failey, senior vice president and senior director of American furniture and decorative arts at Christie’s, has been named the 2007 recipient of the Award of Merit, presented annually by the Antiques Dealers Association of America (ADA). Progressive art movements by definition move forward, so it is no surprise that Modernism, Sanford Smith’s 21-year-old show at the Seventh Regiment Armory from November 17 to 20, never stops evolving. For many in Boston, the annual Ellis Memorial Antiques Show is the place to see and be seen. The antiques show itself draws some of the best dealers in the country, and they bring along choice antiques. ACA Galleries is presenting the exhibition “Ralph Fasanella: Artist of the People,” which commemorates the tenth anniversary of the artist’s death. The exhibition runs through February 3. “Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990–2005,” an exhibition of more than 100 photographs, is on view at the Brooklyn Museum through January 21. Each of London Olympia’s trio of fairs, taking place in spring, summer and winter, has its own distinct identity, yet all three share the brand image of being among the longstanding and important annual events in the international antiques calendar. Sollo Rago Modern Auctions continued a record climb on October 21 and 22, grossing $6 million and setting world records for the sale of the designers Wharton Esherick, Gertrude and Otto Natzler and Phil Powell. (AP) — A painting believed to be a previously unknown work by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens sold for $2.9 million at a Swedish auction on December 5. Mastro Auctions’ Classic Collector auction, which closed October 26, set a new company record, outpacing the previous one set in October 2005 by more than $300,000. “A healthy result for a well-edited sale was the outcome of today’s Nineteenth Century European paintings auction,” said Deborah Coy, Christie’s department head, following the October 25 auction of Orientalists and Academics. Throughout December, Winston-Salem’s historic district is alive with candlelight tours and caroling, wagon rides and visits from St Nick. At the Old Salem Toy Museum, however, the presents are already unwrapped. The gift of Thomas A. Gray and his mother, the late Anne Pepper Gray (1921–2003), the Old Salem Toy Museum — one of four institutions that together make up Old Salem Museums and Gardens — houses 1,200 antique playthings dating from 225 to 1925. On view are European, British and American dolls and dollhouses, menageries, circuses, parlor toys, transportation toys, German wooden toys, seasonal toys, and children’s dishes, furniture, uniforms and sporting equipment.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation announced December 8 that it plans to sell Carter’s Grove, its 400-acre property on the James River, eight miles from the outdoor history museum’s main complex. Change, in addition to being unavoidable, is never easy. “Yacht Race in New York Harbor” by James E. Buttersworth sold for $161,000 at the December 10 sale at Grogan & Company and a preening shorebird carved by Anthony Elmer Crowell brought $46,000. With a new name and new management, The Greenwich Show, formerly Antiquarius, has the geo-commercial heft of an event that might appeal as much to young, flush-with-cash hedge fund managers as to seasoned prowling collectors. It is not easy to put on an antiques show in the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, but one has taken place there for the past 29 years. During that time management has taken pains, and rightly so, to protect the elaborate woodwork and inlaid marble of this historic structure, once the summer home of LeGrand Lockwood. Pamela Guthman, a much loved member of the antiques community and Antiques and The Arts Weekly’s extended family, died peacefully on December 11 in San Diego. She was 53. The Pound Ridge Historical Society Antiques Show on November 25–26, now in its 32nd year, continues to impress. Crocker Farm, Inc’s November 4 auction broke two world auction records for American stoneware. The top lot was a St Johnsbury, Vt., water cooler decorated with what was believed to be a Civil War-era soldier with his wife that realized $88,000. On December 15, Sotheby’s series of Twentieth Century design auctions brought a total of $18,781,480, just above the presale high estimate of $18.66 million. Clients from far and wide joined in the hot bidding at Swann Galleries’ annual auction of Rare & Important Travel Posters on Monday, November 13. The resulting sale grossed more than any previous sale of posters in this category at Swann. To celebrate Hanukkah, The Jewish Museum presents “Light x Eight: The Hanukkah Project” through February 4. This exhibition explores the transformative properties of light in the works of eight contemporary artists. The Bruce Museum has mounted the exhibition “Black and White Since 1960: Prints from the Collection of Reba and Dave Williams,” on view through February 25. A promised gift of 39 hand colored lithographs by the artist Jim Dine is being celebrated with an exhibition on view at the New York Public Library through February 18. “Josef Hoffmann: Interiors, 1902–1913,” presents four complete interiors by the influential Austrian architect at Neue Galerie, on view through February 26. It is the first exhibition of its kind, and highlights material never before shown in the United States.
Admiration for the “King of Cool” fueled bidding on November 11 as Bonhams & Butterfields sold property from the widow of Steve McQueen — bringing more than $1 million for vintage motorcycles, memorabilia and antique toys acquired by the actor and his wife Barbara. Status, prosperity and delicious indulgences. That is the top-line social history behind the exhibit of 250 pieces of Maryland silver now on permanent display at the Maryland Historical Society. But the deeper story of the hollowwares produced in Maryland, their evolution and impact on American silver styles across the nation, reflects the true importance of this landmark exhibition. In describing the exhibit, “Served in Style: Silver Collection of the Maryland Historical Society,” Jeannine Disviscour, who created and curates the show, called it “dazzling” — and she was not just mining a cliché. The silver is displayed in a gallery bathed in sunlight. Given the setting, every chased detail, repoussé decoration and decorative banding can be seen, studied and admired. Rarities of all national stripes were on display by 115 dealers inside the Wilton High School field house on December 3. For the 25th consecutive year, Bettianne Sweeney and her family managed and hosted the Thanksgiving Holiday Antique Show, November 24–26, at the Kingsmill Marriott Hotel. Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street announced at a press conference on December 21 that Thomas Eakins’ painting, “The Gross Clinic,” will stay in Philadelphia forever. Devoted to the collaboration between the celebrated painters Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder, exhibition will remain on view through January 28. Three Exhibitions Currently On View At Fogg Art Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum & Arthur M. Sackler Museum Christie’s November 8 evening sale of Impressionist and Modern art realized $491,472,000, setting a new record for any auction.
Fantasy Figures Rule The Day At Skinner’s Americana James D. Julia’s December 1–2 auction of fine glass and lamps was filled with treasures for both the beginning and advanced collector. |
2007
2006
2005
20032
2003
2002
2001
2000
