Head of the Americana department at Northeast Auctions, Merrilee J. Possner died September 21, of cancer. She was 64 years old. Gerald M. “Tim” Fitz-Gerald of Plank Road died September 11, at Porter Hospital in Middlebury, Vt.; he was 82 years old. Also known as “Fitzie,” he owned and operated Fitz-Gerald Antiques of Vergennes since 1969 and was a respected antiques dealer, known throughout New England. Michael Andrew Cobosco, owner of Boca Auction Gallery, has been charged with seven counts of grand larceny and theft in Palm Beach County for withholding money and/or property from clients who consigned items to be auctioned by his firm. In all, Cobosco is accused of defrauding various parties that have come forward so far to the tune of about $86,000. “We put the decision off as long as possible but finally on Monday, September 24, we officially postponed our National Capital Winter Antiques Show until 2008,” Bob James of Armacost Antiques Shows told Antiques and The Arts Weekly the next day.
Recognized as the architect who transformed Salem into one of the most beautiful towns in America, Samuel McIntire was also a woodcarver who established one of the first significant carving traditions in the new nation.
A highly unusual stoneware folk art figure of a stag decorated with spots of cobalt became the top selling lot at Pook & Pook’s two-day Americana auction this past Friday and Saturday, September 28 and 29.
A heavily carved three-piece Renaissance Revival bedroom set that had only been moved twice in its 100-year-plus history, with second move coming recently as it was relocated to Fontaine’s Auction gallery, brought a premium price at auction this past Saturday, September 29. Now in the 20th year of conducting celebrated summer auctions at the legendary Samoset Resort, James D. Julia once again hosted a “Spectacular Maine Auction” August 28-30.
The Connecticut State Police and Southbury Police Department are investigating the theft of a painting taken from the vestibule of the South Britain Congregational Church at 693 South Britain Road.
The Nassau County Police Department is investigating a petty larceny reported by the Raynham Hall Museum of an antique stoneware crock. There were not as many dealers as last year, about 30, but that did not seem to slow down either the preview attendance on Friday, September 14, or the traffic on Saturday for the 16th annual Adirondack Mountains Antiques Show. “I’m on a mission, I couldn’t sleep at all last night,” proclaimed Verna Scott, the first person in a long line awaiting the start of the Maine Antiques Dealer Show that opened on September 15 for a two-day run.
Linda Zukas produced her 50th consecutive Antique Textiles and Vintage Fashions Show and Sale with a sold-out house of exhibiting dealers and huge crowds on September 3
From the solemnity of the tabernacle to the tinny tunes of the carousel comes a seemingly unlikely association, yet there is a common thread, one that bespeaks the unsurpassed artistic Jewish carving traditions in America during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Immigrant Jewish artisans who arrived in America in the late Nineteenth Century were imbued in the Eastern and Central European skills and traditions of wood carving. Schooled in the art of carving horses, eagles, foliage and fruit for Torah arks and gravestones, these artists expanded their mediums, creating fanciful figures for the newly burgeoning carousel industry. “Gilded Lions and Jeweled Horses: The Synagogue to the Carousel,” on view at the American Museum of Folk Art in New York City through March 23, explores the traditions of this select group of carvers through their religious and fanciful works. The Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University will host an exhibition spotlighting the first American retrospective of Cuba’s best-known and most influential Surrealist, Wifredo Lam, October 11–January 21. Discarded and destined for the dump, an extremely rare Arts and Crafts period chair by Charles Rohlfs was saved by a local resident many years ago and had since been used in an unassuming “double-wide,” until being consigned to Cottone’s for an auction this past Friday, September 28. The Americana market got a shot in the arm October 3, with Christie’s offering of a small but select grouping of merchandise that generated an impressive $10,904,250 for the 94 lots sold.
The Wilton Historical Society is planning a 2008 exhibition featuring several Wilton, Conn., artists active in the early Twentieth Century. The society is seeking to borrow works to include in the exhibition from collectors and institutions.
A series of burglaries have been reported to the state police in Keene Valley in the Adirondack Mountains. Believed to have been conducted between October of 2006 and May of 2007, according to Investigator Larry E. Cragle, the police believe they have been committed by the same person or group of people. The Greenwich Police Department is investigating the theft of a bronze statue, valued at $45,000, from a hotel on September 11.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has appointed Leah Dickerman as a curator in the department of painting and sculpture. The Board of Trustees of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts appointed Kaywin Feldman as the museum’s new director and president. Feldman will begin her position January 1. Her selection followed an international search led by an 11-person search committee.
A brass slave collar engraved with the name of a Montgomery County, N.Y., slave owner, and bones from a Chautauqua County elk, more than 170 years old, are among items from the New York State Museum’s collections now on exhibit at the State Museum.
Three letters written by Confederate General Robert E. Lee during the Civil War sold for $61,000 at Bill Mishoe’s Auction House on September 29. Nan Gurley’s Sturbridge Antiques Show on September 6 focused on primitive, country and Americana.
What is 228 feet long, weighs in at 3,200 tons, requires a draft of only 6½ feet, and has 28 individual galleries filled with art treasures? There is only one answer: the three-deck megayacht Grand Luxe, a floating antiques fair that is the brainchild of David and Lee Ann Lester. Buyers from several states traveled here for the August 25 edition of Dan Morphy’s toy, doll, holiday and advertising show, which is conducted at the York Fairgrounds’ Memorial Hall East.
New buyers and seasoned collectors filled Bonhams & Butterfields’ galleries in San Francisco and Los Angeles on August 7 for the opportunity to bid on works by legendary California and American masters.
An important Jasper Cropsey oil on paper on canvas painting discovered by auctioneer Robert Foster in the top of a local barn, unframed and discarded many years ago amidst a pile of frames, created quite a stir as it was offered at Foster’s Auction Gallery on September 1.
Nobody does Modernism the way California does. Yet its depth and breadth had gone largely unexplored until Orange County Museum of Art curator Elizabeth Armstrong decided to build an exhibition around a group of West Coast painters known as the Abstract Classicists. Working at midcentury, they had fallen under the influence of Modernism as it was practiced in the “sunshine and noir” atmosphere of Southern California. By the late 1940s, Modernism was an accepted aspect of every working artist’s vocabulary. By 1959, it was an ingrained part of the American way of life. Spinning “cool” into its many connotations, “Birth of The Cool: California Art, Design and Culture at Mid-Century,” on view at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, Calif., through January 6, presents a vision of Modernist theory and application as it moved from “cool” — some would say cold — aesthetic of pure rationality and logic to the laid-back “cool” of the hipster.
An unassuming son of Salem known to have ventured only as far afield as Boston and Newburyport, and then only on occasion, set a standard for order and elegance in the American Federal period that endures to this day. Trained as a housewright and a self-taught practitioner of architecture, wood carving and interior design, Samuel McIntire’s talents were so profound that his work became emblematic of the new republic. The exhibition “Samuel McIntire, Carving an American Style,” on view at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., celebrates the 250th anniversary of his birth and explores the genius of the man as carver.
The Marburger Farm Antique Show, owned and managed since the early 1990s by John Sauls, has been sold, it was announced last week. The show’s name and the facility at which it is conducted was sold for an undisclosed price to Margaret Marsh Mebus. Marjorie H. “Peggy” Schorsch, 77, a well-known collector and dealer in American antiques, noted for her instinctive good taste and playful good humor, died October 12 at Walnut Place, after a long battle with emphysema. A stolen bronze figural statue by Edward Henry Berge, titled “Wildflower,” that appeared in the October 12 issue of Antiques and The Arts Weekly, was recovered by the Greenwich Police Department. Recall, too, that the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum had its own problems temporarily unberthing from its home at Pier 86 on Manhattan’s West Side. No less resolute is the Stella Show Mgmt Co. team, which is reeling from a double whammy of venue challenges stemming from the perennial problem of doing business in the Big Apple.
This Vermont Antiques Dealers' Association annual event celebrated its 33rd year over the September 29–30 weekend at the Hunter Park Pavilion, with a substantial growth in attendance. A bank of phone bidders drove the price for a first edition Book of Mormon well beyond its $50/80,000 estimate, all the way up to $103,500 at PBA Galleries’ auction of fine Americana with autographs and manuscripts, October 11. Outstanding merchandise achieved hearty prices at C. Downing Auctions’ September 22 event.
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) has acquired 171 photographs consisting of 136 individual prints, a book and a portfolio, many of which represent the height of Surrealism photographic movement of the first half of the Twentieth Century.
Buyers turned out in force at Rago’s sale of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century fine art on September 15. The house was full and hundreds more bidders participated by phone, online and by absentee bid, buying more than 90 percent of the sale by lot.
Tucked into Stair Galleries’ Exposition auction on September 28 were 200 lots of previously unoffered property from the William M.V. Kingsland estate that unlike the last sale from this estate, went off without a hitch.
Normally, the carved folk art that flies at auction has wings, but a decidedly un-aerodynamic looking Nineteenth Century Punch cigar store figure soared to $542,400 on day two of Philip Weiss’s October 20 and 21 sale. Russian paintings dominated the day at Gene Shapiro’s inaugural art auction this past Saturday, October 20, with numerous record prices paid at auction established throughout the course of the sale.
Late in the 920-lot Asian works of art sale at Skinner this weekend, a Nineteenth Century Korean folding screen practically levitated out of the room. Dubbed a “Furniture, Art & Accessories” sale by auction house principal and auctioneer Ron Pook, the September 28 and 29 event at Pook & Pook might have been better termed an Accessories, Paintings & Furniture auction. Led by an extremely rare whimsical stoneware sculpted stag, and followed by a plethora of other desirable Pennsylvania accessories and paintings, furniture routinely took a back seat to the smalls.
The crowd at the Anatole Hotel was stunned as Heritage Auction Galleries sold “Pushkin at the Water’s Edge,” by Russian artist Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky for $1.61 million. Sotheby’s September 18 sale of fine Chinese ceramics and works of art brought $7,657,218 and many outstanding prices for works of art, such as cloisonné and rhinoceros horns and furniture. The auction was 64.7 percent sold by value and 51 percent sold by lot.
Linda Tate has retired after seven years as president of the New Hampshire Antiques Dealers Association, but will remain on the board of directors as the immediate past president. Well-known Indiana antiques dealer Mike Sullivan died at his Westfield home on October 6. Dissatisfied with the way that decisions are being made at the Philadelphia Antiques Show, four specialists in American country furniture, folk art and portrait miniatures — Suzanne Courcier and Robert Wilkins, James and Nancy Glazer, Elle Shushan and David Wheatcroft — have resigned from next spring's fair. Joseph K. Kindig III has been named the 2008 winner of the Antiques Dealers Association of America’s annual Award of Merit. The award will be presented to the York, Penn., antiques dealer at a dinner in his honor at the Philadelphia Antiques Show on April on Saturday, April 12.
Stella Show Mgmt Co. received official word from New York City officials that the March 15–16 Pier Antiques Show is good to go. The show had been in jeopardy of not taking place due to construction schedules at the facility.
Show organizers are sometimes accused of relying too heavily on the tried and no longer so true. That could hardly be said of the Historical Society of Princeton, which last year turned to Rhinebeck, N.Y.-based Barn Star Promotions to help get all cylinders firing on its charity antiques event. Friday, October 5, was a busy day at Bryan Memorial Town Hall in Washington Depot. Not only was there the run of the day business going on in the town’s public offices, but antiques dealers, volunteers and workers were scurrying all over taking care of last minute preparations for the opening of the 21st annual Washington Connecticut Antiques Show on Saturday morning. Nestled in the small historic hamlet on the far corner of the town’s charismatic green is the Weston Playhouse, one of numerous buildings in town listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and home to the annual Weston Antiques Show. Now in its 49th year, Weston has developed a cultlike following among the throngs of people in attendance, some of whom routinely travel from as far as California. The second stop for shoppers during Antiques Week in Vermont is the lodge at Okemo Mountain Resort for the popular Okemo Antiques Show October 5–6, which has become known as the Americana source for shoppers heading north along the heavily traveled show trail.
Up here, seemingly at the top of Vermont, the color-dappled wooded hillsides stretch out forever — but there is that distraction caused by the trove of antique gems set out inside a ski lodge each fall by an intrepid group of dealers who are more like a family than a loose affiliation of merchants.
People who say that there are no characters left in the antiques business do not know Carl L. Crossman, the grand master of the China trade for the past 40 years. Crossman was only two years out of Wesleyan University in Connecticut when he first published on the China Trade, an evocative term used by collectors to describe the luxury goods and household staples brought home by merchant sea-men. Many scholars have delved deeply into Asian export art, but Crossman’s well-worn references, offering an overview of the field, are still on every specialist’s bookshelf. Crossman himself keeps a high profile. He lectures regularly and for eight seasons was a guest appraiser on the Public Broadcasting Service’s television series Antiques Roadshow. “In some ways, Carl has done more than all of us to promote interest in the field. He has a passion for the people behind the objects. He brings the subject to life,” says William R Sargent, curator of Asian export art at the Peabody Essex Museum. The last stop for folks heading home from the weekend’s quintet of shows, Antiques in Vermont conducted at Riley Rink at Hunter Park marked its 23rd year on October 7. The Ludlow Antiques Show proves its worth annually as it mightily rises to the occasion and transforms an average Friday autumn evening in this small ski-town into a blistering hot event on the show circuit. Owen James Groark Jr of Centerville, Mass., and Naples, Fla., died Monday, October 22, after a long illness. He was often seen at many antiques shows in and around Fairfield County, Conn., where he assisted his wife, Madeline Leahy, who was an antiques dealer for many years. Revered, along with Picasso, as a great pioneer of Modern art, Henri Matisse (1869-1954) utilized radical innovations in his influential paintings and sculptures. His mastery of painted works — and cutouts — is well known. A new exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) confirms his extraordinary gifts as creator of three-dimensional objects. “Matisse: Painter as Sculptor,” the first Matisse sculpture exhibition in more than two decades, was organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher Sculpture Center (where it opened in January), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the BMA, where it is on view through February 3. This fascinating exhibition features more than 160 sculptures, paintings, drawings and archival photographs that underscore the artist’s inventiveness, the dialogue between his two- and three-dimensional works and his contributions to the evolution of Modern art.
Byrd Drucker, 78, founder of Drucker Antiques, died on October 25. Mechanical banks from the collection of Stephen and Marilyn Steckbeck skyrocketed to $7.7 million at Morphy Auctions on Saturday, October 27. Stella Show Mgmt Co. has received an okay from the National Guard unit commander for the 69th Regiment Armory to go ahead with the Armory show on January 18, 19 and 20.
Flamingo Promotions has cancelled the Delaware Books and Ephemera Show that was scheduled for Sunday, November 11.
The Toledo Museum of Art recently announced that an arrest has been made in the case of the 2006 theft of the museum’s Francisco de Goya y Lucientes painting, “Children with a Cart,” 1778.
This December, James Graham & Sons will move to a new location on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at 32 East 67th Street. The gallery will inaugurate the space with an exhibition devoted to the work of Paul Manship, Walter Gay, Norman Bluhm, Guy Pène du Bois and other gallery artists.
“Pets in America: The Story of Our Lives with Animals at Home,” a lively exhibition examining the special bonds between Americans and their house pets, will open at Winterthur Museum & Country Estate on November 10, and run through January 20.
Furniture was the main draw at Sotheby’s October 4 Americana sale, which realized $3,256,394 on 129 lots sold.
Americana Week in January seems to be getting bigger each year. Concerned that buyers are being overwhelmed with choices, Christie’s decided to shift some of its firepower to its fall sale on October 3.
“It has been an enthusiastic crowd,” stated auction house principal Gene Shannon during the preview for his auction October 25. The enthusiasm continued well into the evening sale, as lot after lot left the auction block in excess of estimates. More than 75 dealers assembled on Columbus Day weekend for the Champlain Valley Antiques Festival at the Champlain Valley Exposition fairgrounds to offer their collections to the region’s antiques collectors and weekend leaf-peepers.
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