The stakes were high and the price of victory was great but the Philadelphia Museum Of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts have prevailed in keeping Thomas Eakins’ “The Gross Clinic” in the city in which it was created. Iowa State University will open a state-of-the-art contemporary museum in Morrill Hall on the university’s central campus on March 22. The Christian Petersen Art Museum, named after the artist-in-residence at Iowa State for some 20 years, will be the nation’s first campus museum dedicated to campus public art and visual literacy and learning. The American Antiques Show (TAAS) kicked off with a lively preview party on Wednesday, January 17, and attendance was up 25 percent through Friday. The gate held steady through the weekend, as did sales. Balmy weather on the January 13–14 weekend gave a big assist to patron traffic at the White Plains Winter Antiques Show produced by The Last Detail Antiques Shows. A new gallery at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will debut February 28 with one of the finest collections of English silver featuring fine pieces by master silversmiths of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries such as Paul de Lamerie and Paul Storr, and silver retailer Robert Garrard.
The Norton Museum of Art pays tribute to one of America’s — and Palm Beach’s — quintessential style icons with the exhibition “Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel,” on view February 25–May 27. Once again it became a downsizing issue and once again an Americana collection went to auction. The sale of the Marc and Laurie Krasny Brown collection became part of Americana Week in New York City and took place at Sotheby’s on Sunday, January 21, at 11 am.
Total sales of $1.7 million was the end result of Jackson’s International December 6–7 auction featuring American and European fine art and antiques. The two-day sale included more than 720 registered bidders representing 30 countries worldwide. It took barely an hour to disperse, but a rare cache of early American silver, most of it made in New York, Boston and Salem between 1670 and 1820, generated $1,719,880 including buyer’s premium at Christie’s on January 18. Resembling the iconic pink drum-beating Energizer Bunny, waves of collectors were “still going” at the opening of the final event of Americana Week, Stella Show Mgmt Co.’s Americana Pier Show. Today, at the end of Washington Avenue, one-and-a-half blocks west of the Albany Institute of Art, stands a small community park. The tiny landmark is quite different from the place the people of Albany knew 200 years before, a place where art and enterprise united as simple clay was transformed into something beautiful and marketable. An entrepreneur from New England named Paul Cushman owned the property then, and on it sat a thriving stoneware pottery. “Paul Cushman: The World and Work of an Early Nineteenth Century Potter” sheds new light on Cushman’s career in Albany. The exhibition at the Albany Institute of Art brings together 72 stoneware objects, approximately 50 of which were produced at Cushman’s pottery. On view through May 27, the exhibition traces Albany stoneware production from its earliest beginnings to 1850, long after Cushman’s death. Powerful, energetic and en vogue, three words that aptly define not only the works of art that were marketed at Sanford Smith’s Outsider Art Fair, but also the fair itself. The cornerstone of Outsider Art Week, Smith’s fair stimulates the senses and creates excitement, and much like sex, excitement sells. The Winter Antiques Show has long been the cornerstone of Americana Week in New York. Notwithstanding its well-deserved reputation for all things American, the fair, which wrapped up on January 28 after 11 days at New York’s Seventh Regiment Armory, is getting stronger in a host of other categories, from antiquities to jewelry. The Seventh Regiment Armory has rarely looked better in light of ongoing restoration, which the Seventh Regiment Conservancy estimates will take five years and cost about $150 million. Show managers are concerned about the chilling effect of steep rent hikes, however. Scott Antique Market has always been popular with vendors and buyers alike; antiques vendors have been the mainstay at Scott’s since the shows started nearly 20 years ago. and the weekend of January 20 and 21 was no exception. Bonhams has announced that it will charge a 20 percent buyer’s premium on all lots hammering up to $500,000, effective April 1 for US sales. Connecticut legislator Julia B. Wasserman has introduced a bill that would improve the process of purchasing or disposing of antique items containing mercury, such as antique thermometers and barometers. Sometime between January 27 and 28, a painting valued at between $4,500 and $5,000 was taken from an antiques shop here. The painted silk mourning picture in original period gilt frame measures approximately 22 by 20 inches, with an eglomise glass liner. Following a residential burglary here on November 5, 2006, the homeowner reported that ten pieces of antique stoneware were missing, along with other items, including candlesticks, serving spoons and forks and place settings.
MoMA's new "Focus" series kicks off with “Focus: Paul Klee,” an installation of 32 paintings, prints and drawings that spans Klee’s career from 1903 to 1940. On view until March 5, it celebrates the depth and breadth of the artist’s achievement. The first major US exhibition in nearly three decades of the works of acclaimed Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo (1899–1991), “Tamayo: A Modern Icon Reinterpreted,” will make its debut at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA), its lead organizer, February 17 through May 27. With the return of its Old Master paintings from a three-year national tour, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will present the glories of its collections in “Faith and Fortune: Five Centuries of European Masterworks,” March 2–December 9.
Swann Galleries’ annual auction of rare and important Art Nouveau posters on December 20, which featured works by masters of the medium, became the auction house’s most successful poster sale to date, totaling just under $1 million. It all began on Friday, January 19, at 10 am when the first lot of the Americana sale at Sotheby's was put up for bid. It all ended late Sunday afternoon, January 21, when the last of 1,080 lots was hammered down. A carved oak Art Nouveau bakery interior fetched $97,750 at Kamelot’s Architectural Antiques and Victoriana sale on December 2 from a restaurant owner who plans to use the interior in one of his bakeries in the heart of New York City. Americana Week shows and sales increasingly rely on blockbusters to capture attention in a crowded market and boost the bottom line. At Christie’s January 18 and 19 sales of American furniture, folk art, silver, prints and decoys, ten lots out of 716 generated $15,102,600, or 63 percent of the $23,922,400 total. Robert L. Newell, Jr, died October 12, 2006, at age 54 of complications of melanoma. He began in the antiques and appraisal business in the greater Hartford area under the late Paul Cooley in 1974 A rare A.L. Jewell copper weathervane in the form of a horse soaring through a hoop created quite a stir among the capacity crowd at Skinner’s February 18 Americana auction. Hundreds of designers, Eva Zeisel fans, and students came to view the retrospective of Zeisel’s work at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery that Pratt mounted in November to celebrate the 100th birthday of the legendary ceramicist. E&J Frankel, Ltd will conduct its 100th exhibition and sale celebrating 40 years of presenting Asian art to the world community beginning March 21. The first 50 exhibition articles were collected in the firm’s 25th anniversary catalog. The Hammer Museum has received a gift of more than 40 contemporary artworks, the great majority of them sculptures and mixed-media works, donated by Dean Valentine, Los Angeles television executive and media investor, and his wife, Amy Adelson. Before a standing-room-only crowd at Winter Associates, Inc on January 15, an oil on canvas by David Johnson brought a record $448,000. Bidding throughout the sale was healthy, with dealers and private individuals vying for the estate and museum merchandise offered. Altermann Galleries & Auctioneers’ December 16 auction realized $4,855,390 and in the process set new record prices for several artists’ works. Heritage Auction Galleries realized a new auction world record with the personal collection of Dr James Naismith sale that closed on December 15. Setting the mark for the highest total ever realized for a single, nonbaseball, sporting figure, the final tally reached $724,313. A record number of bidders from around the globe, prompted by worldwide press coverage of a Christmas Day letter from Charles Dickens, participated in R&R Enterprises’ final auction of 2006, which ended December 18. It is hard to imagine an antiques show that has been conducted semiannually for the past 74 years, yet that is the case with the Original 148th Semi-Annual York Antiques Show and Sale that once again opened its doors to the public on February 2 for a three-day run. There were good finds to be had at the 41st annual Tolland Antiques Show. This was a good year to be shopping for hooked rugs, samplers, silhouettes, redware, stoneware, banister back chairs, early American portraits, treen, pewter and early iron.
The January 26–28 Birchwood Manor Antiques Show showcased treasures fit for a king from Eighteenth Century furniture to fine art. Since the establishment of Charles Lewis Tiffany’s emporium of luxury goods, opened in 1837 and located on Broadway, the surname has called to mind glittering gems and gleaming precious metals. Now, 170 years, later the glitter and gleam focuses on Mr Tiffany’ son, Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose creative energy extended to virtually every medium and is currently the subject of no fewer than three exhibits on view around the city.
(AP) — Customs agents have seized fossilized dinosaur eggs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars that apparently were smuggled out of China. A passion for aesthetic beauty was all-encompassing during the life of Henry Francis du Pont (1880–1969), and nowhere is that better witnessed than within the meticulous gardens that he lavished his attentions upon at the family estate known as Winterthur, or among the exquisite collections of American antiques that he amassed and housed there. And while one must travel to Delaware’s scenic Brandywine Valley to view his gardens, an impressive assortment of more than 300 iconic antiques from du Pont’s Winterthur collection are now part of a traveling exhibition. A continuation of Winterthur’s 50th anniversary celebration begun in 2002, “An American Vision: Henry Francis du Pont’s Winterthur Museum” is currently on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts through May 6. The exhibition marks the first time that many of these items have been outside the confines of Winterthur. The Palm Beach Winter Antiques Show this year moved to the third weekend in January where it will remain for the 2008 show. The January 18–21 event had silver as the theme, as this year was the 25th anniversary of the show. William Beverly Campbell died unexpectedly on September 10, at the age of 72. Bill and his wife, Judy, divided their time living in Baltimore, Md., and Sunriver. Bill and Judy were active in the antiques community for more than 20 years with Campbell House Antiques. Massachusetts auctioneer Darrell English has been collecting militaria and World War II artifacts since he was a child. His personal collection comprises thousands of items today. With the recent federal adoption of the Stolen Valor Act, however, he worries that he might now be considered a criminal. For ten of the last 11 years the second Sunday of February has seen antiques fill this historic town’s armory under the direction of show manager Paul Davis.This year, the gathering was on February 11, with 42 dealers on hand for the one-day affair. The New York Design Fair, a fresh and exhilarating event promoted by Wendy Management, has created a niche in the Manhattan market by focusing its attention as much, if not more, on design as it does on antiques. In just its third year, the Design Fair, February 8–11, has found its footing with management touting the “best attendance we have seen in ages,” and “very, very strong buying” recorded. A life portrait of South Carolina statesman and Vice President of The United States, John C. Calhoun, achieved a healthy $333,500 during a rousing single-owner collection sale at Brunk Auctions’ February 17–18. The sale, featuring the Sally Abney Rose collection, garnered a sales total of $4.6 million for the 1,200-plus lots sold. Ron Bourgeault’s Northeast Auctions sale on February 23–25 was a blockbuster with many items setting records. The highly diversified sale offered nearly 2,000 lots and grossed an impressive $6.1 million.
Before the telephone, metal fire alarms on street corners and buildings were used to summon a fire department. These technological relics were the focus of a single-owner unreserved sale at Clearing House Auction Galleries Inc on January 20 that proved “big time,” according to auctioneer Thomas LeClair. The official currency auction of the Florida United Numismatists convention was the site of a record-breaking auction January 6–8 that achieved prices of $10,385,202 for currency and $65,180,395 for coins. On January 14, Carlsen Gallery, Inc conducted an auction of antique furniture, accessories and fine art including property from a number of private sources including an Albany, N.Y., estate. Stephen B. O’Brien Jr Fine Arts, LLC is planning to publish the most comprehensive book to date on sporting artist Aiden Lassell Ripley (American, 1896–1969) and is seeking submissions. “Barcelona and Modernity: Gaudí to Dalí,” on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Tisch Galleries March 7–June 3, is the first comprehensive exhibition of its type ever mounted in America to explore the diverse and innovative work of Barcelona’s artists. “From Folk to Modern: Kentucky Pottery, 1900–1950,” on view in the Speed Art Museum’s Focus Galleries March 7–June 24, presents more than 40 objects, tracing the transformation of Kentucky pottery from utilitarian wares to art pottery. In its first special presentation on Frick porcelain in 15 years, the Frick Collection will present, “Rococo Exotic: French Mounted Porcelains and the Allure of the East,” on view March 6–June 10. |
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