Fire! Fire, Fire! What pulse does not quicken at the sound of the alarm? Heads turn and progress halts as firefighters race to a blaze. Whether it is the allure of danger and drama or the heroes who fight it, the attraction is irresistible. The exhibition “Folk Art on Fire,” on view at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., through December, explores the folk art interpretations of colonial firefighters and firefighting in America. The 70 objects encompassing the exhibition include a representation of the tools of firefighting, articles commissioned by fire companies and, perhaps most interesting, the implements and parade regalia that were often times the work of the firefighters themselves. The material is drawn from several collections, including that of the Fenimore and from the Mercer Museum in Doylestown, Penn. Items from the Robert and Katherine Booth collection, many of which were featured in the loan exhibit at the 2004 Philadelphia Antiques Show, are also on view.
While some contemporary art expos thrive on the heat generated by throngs of jostling collectors, the International Fine Art Fair, at the Seventh Regiment Armory May 10–16, takes the opposite approach. Quiet where other shows are noisy, it is intimate, refined, understated and luxurious.
The arrestingly lovely portrait of 16-year-old Augusta Maria Foster, painted around 1836 by Ammi Phillips, starred at Skinner’s June 3 sale of American furniture and decorative arts. Laid down on Masonite, the oil on canvas picture from Phillip’s Kent Period sold by phone to two dealers in partnership for $314,000.
“She has done so much for our organization, held it together, and been a real stickler for detail,” John Keith Russell said as members of the Antiques Dealers’ Association of America showered praise on Satenig St.Marie, retiring executive director of ADA, at a dinner on May 22.
The New Hampshire Auctioneers Association’s (NHAA) annual meeting was conducted April 29 in this town that is home to “Auctioneer Extraordinaire” Richard W. “Dick” Withington, who on March 31 celebrated his 89th birthday.
In an exhibition organized by the Museum of Arts & Design, New York, “Seaman Schepps (1881–1972): America’s Court Jeweler,” brings together some 150 pieces of jewelry, designs and related material that trace the development of this innovative jeweler. The exhibitions opens June 9 at the Gilbert Collection, Somerset House.
Omegamania, organized by horological auctioneer Antiquorum on April 14–15, generated total sales of $5,540,000. Several world records, including the highest price ever paid at auction for a self-winding wristwatch, were set.
A rare cigar-tip cutter and trade stimulator sold for $60,500 at a sale of items from the Jim Cate collection held April 20–22 by Showtime Auction Services at the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds.
The Gallery at Knotty Pine was bustling with sales activity in its two-day auction, April 28–29.
On April 21, Weschler’s held an auction of American and European fine art and Twentieth Century decorative arts, which showcased works by a wide variety of prominent artists, and totaled $571,000.
Ellen Katona and Bob Lutz launched a new show, Antiques in the Country, on May 5; the maiden voyage at this Sergeantsville-Ringoes Road venue was a fusion of both excitement and energy.
Up to 4,000 dealers exhibit on an 84-acre site in ten buildings, arcades and tents at dmg world media’s Newark International Antiques and Collectors Fair six times each year.
Joining the ranks of must-see shows that have a special popularity such as Phantom of the Opera in New York and the Boston Symphony in Tanglewood, Linda Zukas’s Antique Textiles Vintage Fashions Show & Sale kicked off its 2007 season on May 7.
For months, architectural critics have heralded the debut of one of the most anticipated new museum buildings in years. Five glass-sheathed pavilions address the stately classical facade of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. At once classical and contemporary, the Bloch Building addition is being hailed as a near perfect design solution.
American industrial design has long been popular with collectors, yet scholarship has seemingly lagged behind. Streamlining, an influential style during the 1930s, has been the subject of a few books and exhibitions, yet it is only now that just tribute has been paid to all the furnishings and appliances that made that decade, stylistically speaking, such a wonderful time. “American Streamlined Design: The World of Tomorrow,” the first major survey exhibition devoted to the subject, is on view at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal (MMFA) through October 28. The show comprises an exquisite selection of iconic items from the private collection of New York businessman Eric Brill, who recently donated more than 750 pieces to the Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection at the MMFA. Curated by David A. Hanks and Dr Martin Eidelberg, the show has been termed “the most comprehensive exhibition ever mounted on the subject.”
Everyone’s worst nightmare became reality at Coyle’s Auction House on the afternoon of June 6 when a fast-moving three-alarm fire ravaged the 22-year-old auction gallery.
Legislation to exempt antiques dealers from laws banning the purchase, sale or disposal of items containing mercury was recently passed by Connecticut’s general assembly and is due to go into effect on October 1. Rolling farmlands stretching in every direction make the county seat of York a regional breadbasket. It seems only proper that this marketplace known for prize poultry and pickles is also home to the best pickings of some of the antiques trade.
Billing itself as “The Great Country Show,” the Historic East Berlin Antiques Show works hard to live up to its motto: “Fair Prices. Friendly Dealers. The Way Shows Used to Be.” Beginning in an open-air courtyard and winding up through all three floors of the Brandywine River Museum with its spectacular views, the annual Brandywine River Museum Antiques Show put its picturesque setting to full advantage.
A salute to Twentieth Century American music will be presented by the James A. Michener Art Museum via the photo exhibition “Gershwin to Gillespie: Portraits in American Music,” organized by George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, on view June 15–October 7.
The exhibition “The Great Cover Up: American Rugs on Beds, Tables and Floors,” organized by Lee Kogan, curator of special exhibitions and public programs, is on view at the American Folk Art Museum through September 9.
On April 21, Mike and Seth Fallon of Copake Auction held their 16th annual antique bicycle auction. The top lot was a Carroll chainless that had reportedly once belonged to “Diamond Jim” Brady and attained $31,900 here.
The contents of the estate of well-known Williamstown, Mass., antiques dealer John Robinson crossed the auction block on May 31, during a highly anticipated sale conducted by Ron Bourgeault of Northeast Auctions.
Christie’s sale of Russian paintings and works of art on April 18 presented collectors with a wide range of works from the great masters of Russian painting, as well as a strong selection of top decorative works of art, including rare pieces of Fabergé, imperial porcelain and bronzes.
In a hushed and standing-room-only salesroom at Sotheby’s on June 7, auction history was made when a bronze figure of “Artemis and the Stag,” circa First Century BC/First Century AD, fetched $28.6 million, immediately becoming the most expensive sculpture ever sold at auction. Imagine starting the day with a champagne brunch amid erotically provocative sculpture. That was the plucky attraction for patrons attending the Saturday morning opening of the annual New York International Tribal Art & Textiles Show on May 19. Richard Pionk, president of the Salmagundi Club, died Tuesday, June 5, at the age of 71. Pionk, a talented artist, a revered teacher and engaging wit, guided the club for the past 13 years. Burden and Izett announces the passing of its partner, friend and colleague Ben Izett, who was known first in the art world, and then moved into art and antiques dealing. They came from all over to have a look at the Salem Federal mahogany sofa carved by Samuel McIntire that went on the block at Landry Auctions on June 12. Collectors were expecting great results, but were stunned by record prices, totaling $8.7 million, on Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century baseball cards and memorabilia at Robert Edward Auctions.
Christie’s Twentieth Century decorative art and design sale on June 5 and 6 totaled $17,610,320. The highlight of the auction was the prototype Maison Tropicale by Jean Prouvé, a visionary prefabricated construction, which sold for $4,968,000, setting a new world auction record for the legendary designer.
Litchfield County Auctions (LCA) saw its online sale, which began on April 18 and ended May 2, breach the million-dollar mark for the first time in the company’s history. The event included major paintings from the Julius Levy estate, Asian art, jewelry and antiques.
On May 27, Thomaston Place Auction Galleries’ sale of the Irving Bernstein Collection of ancient pottery and Roman glass attracted aggressive bidding from buyers around the world.
The Cape Cod Museum of Art will present “Gail Levin: Photographs Hopper’s Places & Cape Cod Connections” from June 30 to August 5.
AP) — A Paris appeal court has ordered the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation to return a painting to Balthus’s heirs that the painter had entrusted to his sculptor friend Alberto Giacometti, asking him to give it to a waiter at a Paris cafe that they both frequented. Advertised as “rain or shine,” the Blue Ribbon Antiques Show does nothing by halves. Last year it rained so hard that some exhibitors packed out early. With temperatures well into the 80s this year, the third annual Blue Ribbon Antiques Show on Saturday, June 2, was all shine.
Cord Shows had nearly 2,000 visitors for its traditional Memorial Day antiques fair at Lasden Park, where more than 80 dealers offered antiques and early collectibles to the record-breaking crowd.
Bruce Garrett, the third promoter in 31 years to captain the Rhinebeck Antiques Fair, knows a good thing when he sees it. Some other shows may have dipped lately, but this reliable Hudson River classic keeps on rolling.
Philip Johnson’s Glass House is more than the epitome of International Style and more than a temple of Modernism. The Glass House, as the architect’s estate in New Canaan, Conn., is known, is a modernist experience with a capital “E,” one that reawakens an appreciation for the major architectural, art and design movements of the second half of the Twentieth Century. During Johnson’s lifetime (1906–2005), the only way to view the Glass House, its counterpart, the Brick House, and the other visionary structures on Johnson’s 47-acre estate, was to be an invited guest. On April 30, the Glass House opened to the public. Access is limited to groups of ten escorted by a docent — one group on the property at a time. It is a strategy that offers intimacy and the feeling of going one-on-one with Johnson’s immense creativity and obvious love of art. Appropriately, the Glass House opens to the public at a time when Modernism in all its forms is enjoying a renaissance.
A Sixteenth Century Florentine painting of the Virgin and Child by Francesco d’Ubertini Verdi, called Il Bachiacca, has been added to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts collection. Experts call it the Renaissance artist’s masterpiece.
When Jean Burks arrived at the Shelburne Museum in 1995, she was already a well-recognized authority on the Shakers. She joined a museum better known for exuberantly decorated furniture and whimsical folk art than for the understated design that is the hallmark of the United Society of Believers, who lived in utopian communities from Maine to Kentucky. Struck by the contrast, Burks was eager to juxtapose the dramatically different styles that coexisted in the Nineteenth Century, when Shaker communities were at their height. Shelburne’s senior curator also wanted to cut through the clutter of clichés about Shaker style, presenting Shaker design in the context of current research. Burks’ complex agenda is summed up in “Out of This World: Shaker Design Past, Present and Future” at the museum in Shelburne, Vt., on view through October 28. Included are 150 examples of furniture, paintings, spirit drawings, textiles, household objects, accessories, ephemera and commercial wares made by the Shakers for non-Shakers. Organized thematically, the ambitious display organized by Burks and associate curator Kory Rogers relates Shaker design to so-called Fancy furniture of the same period and arrays Modern and contemporary furniture in a sympathetic vein.
Edmund Richard Bierylo of Grantham, who was well-known in the antiques community as co-owner, with his wife, Marilyn, of Falcon’s Roost Antiques, died June 22, at the Clough Center at New London. Doris Stauble of Wiscasset, Maine, died on June 13 at Miles Memorial Hospital. A longtime antiques dealer, she created one-of-a-kind floral arrangements highlighted by antiques as the receptacle. James D. Julia’s burgeoning firearms division got a boost with the hire of two of the country’s most respected firearms specialists: Wes Dillon and Bill Taylor.
(AP) — When Vincent van Gogh arrived in the French village of Auvers-sur-Oise in late May 1890, he embarked on an explosion of creativity, producing more than 70 paintings within two months.Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid brings together 29 of the works in what is billed as a the first exhibition to focus on the Dutch artist’s final days.
The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has acquired the Taper collection of more than 1,500 artifacts, manuscripts and artworks that span Lincoln’s entire life and provide insight into the forces that shaped the man who helped shape the American nation.
The Knights of Columbus Museum premieres a new exhibit, “Joan of Arc: Medieval Maiden to Modern Saint,” on view through September 3.
Bonhams & Butterfields’ auction of Grateful Dead memorabilia from the Ram Rod Shurtliff Collection fetched more than $1.1 million amid competitive bidding on telephones and in the crowded San Francisco auction room.
On May 19, at Brunk Auctions, the top lot was a painting featured on the back cover of the sale catalog. “Silence and Fleeting Light,” by George Gardner Symons (1863–1930) depicting a winter landscape in the Connecticut River Valley, attained $149,500.
When the possibilities are considered, the gray, damp skies early on June 9, for the 27th edition of the two-day Farmington Antiques Weekend were not bad at all. The opening drew eager buyers equipped with hats, umbrellas and slickers, which were donned for just a short time.
Jean Sinenberg continued her traditional start of the season with her 16th annual Hamptons Spring Garden Antiques Show & Sale at the Bridgehampton Community Center May 31–June 3.
Antiquorum’s summer auction on June 14 at The New York Timezone totaled $8,586,583. The highlight of the sale was a Patek Philippe Ref 5002, which sold for $1,240,400, a record for a wristwatch in the United States. |
