The Russian Kremlin evokes many mental images, but for Western minds, the ornately decorated silver flagons, tankards and salt cellars of Tudor England are not usually high on the list. Dana G. Putnam, 65, died Wednesday, May 17, in Heywood Hospital, Gardner, Mass. He was a well-known auctioneer, owner of Country-Auctions and a former elected official. Start with a good idea, add hard work, dedication and some good luck and you have Linda Zukas' 45th Vintage Textile Show at the Sturbridge Host Hotel. The Sturbridge Book & Ephemera Fair debuted at the Host Hotel and Conference Center on May 12-13 to take advantage of Brimfield crowds. "Our customers liked it, and our dealers liked it, the idea of one show under one roof and just one admission ticket," Barry Cohen said of the combined York County Classic Antiques Show and Jim Burk's Greater York Antiques Show May 19-20. "We gave them a great deal, and people seemed to like it," Jim Burk said of his joint venture with Barry Cohen on May 19 and 20 at the York Expo Center on the York Fairgrounds. The Historic East Berlin Antiques Show kicked off May 18 with an inviting preview party and then saw approximately 500 visitors through its gates during its two-day run. Textiles aficionados from across the U.S. and the globe came to New Hope, Penn. for Whitaker-Augusta's sale, which grossed in excess of $385,000. Ira and Larry Goldberg Coins & Collectibles' recent Manuscripts and Collectibles Sale offered 927 lots with the sale grossing more than $1 million. The star lot of Christie's important Chinese ceramics works of art sale on May 30 was an early Ming underglaze copper-red vase, Yuhuchunping, Hongwu period, which fetched $10.2 million. An important autograph letter signed by Abraham Lincoln to his law partner and political confidant, John T. Stuart, brought $80,500 at a Swann Galleries auction. The National Building Museum will present a comprehensive exhibition celebrating the 50th anniversary of the completion of Frank Lloyd Wright's only skyscraper - the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Okla., of 1956. Internationally famous for his mobiles and stabiles, Alexander Calder (1898-1976) is the focus of a new exhibit that shows his lesser known talents as a Surrealist. The Currier Museum of Art announces the acquisition of a major still-life painting, "A Royal Dessert," 1881, by William Michael Harnett (1848-1892), one of America's most important late Nineteenth Century painters. The Great Indoor/Outdoor Antiques Show at the Topsfield Fairgrounds, scheduled for June 24 and 25, has been cancelled. Carol Dean Krute, curator of costume and textiles at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art for 15 years, died of cancer Tuesday, May 30, at her home in Grasmere, N.Y. A circa 1765 Massachusetts bonnet-top high chest of drawers, the cover lot of Skinner's June 4 sale of American furniture and decorative arts, sold for $226,000. Alice Hamilton, 78, died on June 5. Alice was the wife of Derek Hamilton with whom she shared a love of antique silver; they were antique silver dealers who showed under the name H and H Antiques, "A Source of Interesting Silver." Antiques dealers Ted and Carole Hayward will be celebrating their golden anniversary on June 17 and will be enjoying some time on Cape Cod. Lynne "Lily" Buckus, 51, died May 26, after an illness. The longtime antiques dealer who specialized in Victorian furniture was the founder of Northwind Antiques. What England's most famous poet and playwright actually looked like has been a matter of interest for more than 200 years. "Searching for Shakespeare" at the Yale Center for British Art takes up the debate in this exhibition. The National Museum of American Illustration will celebrate its sixth anniversary July 1-2 by showing a selection of patriotic images not usually on display. In a city overpopulated with selling events, the New York International Tribal & Textile Arts Show is unto itself - sophisticated, original, diverse and peripatetic in content. Weather for the May Brimfield week was not good but the gate was up more than ten percent over last May at Nan Gurley's Brimfield Week show. Christie's recently completed the largest auction series in Asia with the sales of Modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art, Twentieth Century Chinese art, Asian contemporary art and Chinese ceramics works of art. "There is twice the amount of energy for this sale than we saw at our last auction," commented Gene Shannon moments prior to Shannon's May 4, auction of Fine American and European Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture. Christie's sale of important American paintings, drawings and sculpture, led by Maxfield Parrish's iconic "Daybreak," one of the most reproduced images in American history, totaled $35.8 million. Greg Martin Auctions realized more than $7 million in sales at its auction of Part I of the Robert Howard collection and the collection of Bowie knives, and achieved its second-highest sale in the company's history. A 1792 half disme, which hails from the Floyd Starr collection, sold for $1,322,500 to a private collector at Heritage Auction Galleries' auction of the Central States Numismatic Society Convention. One of the best collections in the country and rarely seen as a group, the Shelburne Museum's summer exhibition of weathervanes gathers 50 high flyers. The Rhinebeck Antiques Show set up in four buildings for its May 27-28 megashow at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds during its 30th annual outing. Quirky stars and stripes herald Independence Day in the exhibit "The Stars and Stripes: Fabric of the American Spirit," on view at the Wilton Historical Society and Historical Museum. On May 31, Flora Gill Jacobs, a native of Washington, died from congestive heart failure at age 87. She was an internationally recognized authority on dollhouses, and the founder of the Dollhouse Museum in Washington, D.C. Antiques dealer Laura Jean Evans, 47, who held several positions at museums and was curator of the Maria Mitchell House in Nantucket, died on June 12 of cancer in Danvers, Mass. Betty Dawson Forbes, who started New England Antiques Shows and was a longtime show promoter in Connecticut, died on Saturday June 17, a day before her 87th birthday. In honor of Rembrandt's 400th birthday this year, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College presents "Rembrandt: Master of Light and Shadow; Etchings from the Collection of the Hood Museum of Art" on view through September 17. Organized by The Mint Museums, paintings, sculptures, silver and furniture from the late Seventeenth through the Nineteenth Century make up "Spanish Colonial Art from the Lilly and Francis Robicsek Collection" on view through September 10. The British Antiques Dealers Association has postponed plans for a show in New York from January 16 to 21 to coincide with the Winter Antiques Show and Americana Week activities. The full range of American and European jewelry from The Newark Museum's decorative arts collection is together for the first time in the new exhibition titled "Objects of Desire: 500 Years of Jewelry." Intermittent drizzle dampened the verdant grounds skirting Ridgefield's historic Lounsbury House, but that did not take the starch out of the hardy band of antiques dealers who came to show and sell at the outdoor 44th Ridgefield Antiques Market. When American folk art dealer George Schoellkopf resigned from the Winter Antiques Show, it was to pursue a grander vision: that of creating a sprawling garden on 26 tilted acres outside Washington, Conn. Despite a soaking rain, buyers came to the Blue Ribbon Antiques Show and many of the dealers reported some nice sales. The top lot at Christie's ocean liner furnishings and art sale was a painted cast bonze house flag and name from a lifeboat on the RMS Titanic that sold for $72,000. On June 6 at Sotheby's, following extensive scholarship, an ancient Roman figure of Aphrodite was reunited with her head after the two elements had been separated for at least 50 years. The recent Sollo:Rago Modern Auction resulted in a personal best for the auction house with a record breaking $4.8 million yield for both days. A turn-of-the-century Jumeau portrait doll hammered for $9,350, while a smiling Bru Brevete fashion doll from the same period garnered $5,225, at Philip Weiss Auctions' recent estate sale. An early Eighteenth Century Queen Anne tea table soared past all expectations, realizing $59,400, at Litchfield County Auctions' annual spring event. Two blocks from where he was apprehended a year ago with maps that he later confessed to have stolen from Yale, antique map dealer Edward Forbes Smiley III, had his day in court. The Dahesh Museum of Art's presentation of "Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt," is devoted to the Déscription de L'Égypte, a compendium that shaped Europe's understanding of Egypt. The Pennsylvania Art Conservatory welcomes summer with a selection of landscape, seascape and harbor motif paintings in a special exhibition titled "Surf & Turf," which will be on view through July 21. The "Prometheus Triptych," the most important painting by Oskar Kokoschka in the United Kingdom, will be exhibited for the first time in a decade at the Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, through September 17. The Hancock House is exhibiting "Oil & Water: Paintings of Lake George 1860-1945" through August 26. This exhibition offers an opportunity to view the region through the eyes of many American painters who revered this area. James F. Lettis, 83, auctioneer and former mayor of the City of Oneonta, died on Sunday evening, May 14, at the Oneonta Nursing & Rehabilitation Center. The 46th special auction of collectors' carpets and ethnologica at Nagel ended with gratifying knockdowns and a total result of $1.2 million. A pair of mergansers, circa 1900, by Clinton Keith, achieved a record $335,000 at Guyette and Schmidt, Inc's recent 21st annual spring decoy auction. At Bonhams & Butterfields' entertainment memorabilia sale on June 25, film legend Charlie Chaplin's trademark bowler hat and cane from his iconic Tramp costume sold for $139,250. A massive George Nakashima table became the top lot at Skinner this past Saturday, June 24, during its Twentieth Century Furniture and Decorative Arts sale when it fetched $204,000. Egon Schiele's lost masterpiece "Herbstsonne," recently rediscovered and restituted to the heirs of Karl Grünwald, was sold at Christie's on June 20 for $21,688,424. On Flag Day, June 14, at Sotheby's, four rare battle flags captured from American troops during the Revolutionary War sold for $17,392,000, far exceeding the presale estimate of $4/10 million. The Farmington Antiques Show had enough variety to appeal to a wide audience and despite a few weather-related hitches, the show finished its two-day run with a good showing Sunday. Celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2006, the International Ceramics Fair & Seminar, which was conducted June 15-18 at the Park Lane hotel, proved as popular as ever with private collectors and academics. The worlds of photography and sports have evolved hand-in-hand for more than a century, each moving from relatively primitive states to today's more sophisticated status. Western New Jersey, in the hills where Waterloo Village was recreated with a show field for concerts and other events, Stella Show Mgmt Co. continued its tradition for the 31st year with the Waterloo Antiques Show. |
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