It's easy to imagine that, 130 years after the first Americana collectors began poking around barns and attics, no great trove remains hidden away in plain sight, waiting only for the proverbial door knock to be discovered. Sotheby's offered on January 20 the collection built for Diane and Norman Bernstein by Harold Sack and the Harriet Goldweitz pottery collection. Pook & Pook's January 6-7 auction of furniture, art and decorative accessories grossed just over $2.5 million and was 99 percent sold of the 1,004 lots offered. Palmer St Ives Shannon, 74, died at his Maine home on January 31, after complications from lung disease. Is there room for an additional show in the Americana Week lineup for January 2007? Sanford L. Smith and Associates thinks there is. Goya's 1824 portrait of a woman known as María Martínez de Puga is the inspiration for "Goya's Last Works," at The Frick from February 22 through May 14. The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College will present "Secular/Sacred: Eleventh-Sixteenth Century Works from the Boston Public Library and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston." from February 19 through June 4. The Hispanic Society of America is exhibiting watercolors, gouaches and illustrations of Daniel Urrabieta Vierge (1851-1904) from February 16 to April 23. The two-session Christie's sale of the Wildenstein collection of French furniture, objets d'art and tapestries on December 14 and 15 realized $38.8 million. The Providence Athenaeum copy of John James Audubon's The Birds of America was purchased by an American private collector at Christie's for $5,616,000. Native American, pre-Columbian and tribal art was offered and sold by Bonhams & Butterfields, setting world-record auction prices for multiple lots from a noted private collection. Years from now collectors will hark back on the January 7 auction in Newport Beach conducted by Theriault's as perhaps the most significant doll auction of its time. At the Birchwood Manor Antiques Show on January 6-8, art glass, silver, jewelry, fine art, Asiatic, bronzes, lighting and Continental furniture were fit to be seen. Sotheby's Americana Week Sales Total $24,693,680 Hefty end-of-year bonuses, mild weather, and more receptions and special events than ever triggered a boom in attendance and sales at the 52nd Winter Antiques Show. Focusing on the Twentieth Century renaissance of printmaking, "Presses, Pop and Pomade: American Prints Since the Sixties" is the subject of an exhibit currently open at Vassar College. The weather may have been iffy but the Mancuso New Hope Winter Antiques Show was a sure bet for patrons who bought family treasures at this Bucks County event. "This is more than just a parade of books or a parade of furniture. It's the story of an era," says Erin Coe, curator at the Hyde Collection, about the current exhibition "Live, Love, Work: The Roycroft Legacy." Just before 4 pm on Wednesday, January 18, the lobby of the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street was as lively as a saloon at whistle time. The opening of the 2006 American Antiques Show was minutes away. Sotheby's Old Master paintings, drawings and sculpture auctions totaled $79,669,380, a record for a series of Old Masters sales in New York. "An amazing auction" was how John Nye described his recent auction at Dawson & Nye, where the largest number of bidders in the company's history participated. Fairfield Auction conducted its first auction of 2006 before a standing-room-only crowd featuring a collection of Eighteenth Century Italian furniture from a local estate. Heritage Auction Galleries' recent auction, which achieved $3.8 million, broke its record for the highest price paid for a comic book by $100,000. To mark the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth, the Van Gogh Museum is presenting an exhibition featuring Rembrandt van Rijn and his Italian counterpart, Caravaggio. "Arctic Transformations: The Jewelry of Denise and Samuel Wallace," will be on view at the National Museum of American Indian from March 2 to July 23. An exhibition, "Heads and Tales: Portraits and Propaganda on Classical Coins," is on view at the Mount Holyoke College Art Museum through July 9. On February 24, the Historical Society of Delaware will open its new special exhibition, "Schoonover Studios: A Place in Our History." When the Outsider Art Fair opened January 26, the gallery pulsated with raw emotion unleashed by the narratives, fantasies and the spiritual enigmas of dozens of untaught masters. Closing out a week of shows, known as Americana Week, Stella Show Mgmt Co. opened at the Piers on January 21, with Americana and Antiques @ The Piers. With its earthy palette and arresting design, the pottery Americana collectors casually, sometimes inaccurately, call "mocha" appeals to practiced eyes. Unsigned, in need of cleaning and with a puncture inflicted by Hurricane Charlie, the oil on canvas ship portrait still managed to set a world record price. Mary Walton, 91, widow of American antiques dealer John S. Walton, died on February 6. Talk about a formula: The Tolland Antiques Show has one and it does not appear that there are any changes set for the future. And why should there be, for this show clicks. On February 14 at Sotheby's, Edward Steichen's "The Pond-Moonlight" shattered the world record for a photograph at auction, selling to applause for $2,928,000. "Dazzle," the first of three Virginia Museum of Fine Arts exhibitions in a statewide series opens March 3 at the Piedmont Arts Association and runs through April 23. A duck call made by J.T. Beckart in the 1940s sold for $9,219 in an online sale conducted on January 25-26 by SoldUSA.com. It was standing room only as Bonhams New York conducted the firm's 24th annual Dog Sale on February 14, setting an international sales record for a dog art auction. After negotiating with the Pier management for a whole year, the Triple Pier Show will only have use of two piers for its March 18-19 show during rebuilding of the piers. Acknowledged as the greatest American sculptor of the Twentieth Century, David Smith (1906-1965) combined imagery inspired by European innovations in Cubism and Surrealism . Strong prices were posted across the boards during the Impressionism and Modern painting auctions at Christie's and Sotheby's earlier this month. "Through the Eye of the Needle: The Fabric Art of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz," will open Sunday, February 26, in the Arrington Gallery of The Birmingham Museum of Art. The Maine Auctioneers Association inducted Central Maine country auctioneer Arthur Julia into the Maine Auctioneer's Hall of Fame at its annual meeting on January 13. |
