| 2008 Annual Index |
Promoters Barry Cohen and Jim Burk have announced the cancellation of their upcoming show Antiques Philadelphia: Spring Show at East Falls, originally scheduled to take place April 11–13.
On February 19, John Moran Auctioneers hosted the first of its tri-annual California and American paintings sales for 2008. Great anticipation surrounded the sale, as it was headlined by an important work by Nicolai Fechin. In all, 13 new world auction records were set, and more than $3.4 million was earned.
Lyman Allyn Art Museum announces a new exhibition, “Fifty Years of Collecting Contemporary Art at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum,” on view March 15–August 17.
Country Home Antiquing Festival at Music Valley February 14–16 was a big success for all the participants, visitors, dealers Jenkins Management and the magazine, Country Home.
“It would take a lifetime of travel to experience all that the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art and Antiques Show has to offer, all in one place, and all at one time,” state promoters Robert Samuels, Scott Diament and Kris Charmonde in the show’s inch-thick and lavishly illustrated catalog. In just its fifth year, this show puts its money where its mouth is.
Of the many folk works displayed at the American Folk Art Museum that are identified as either a gift or promised gift of Ralph Esmerian, the cornerstone of this collection -- a painting by American folk artist Edward Hicks (1780–1849), “The Peaceable Kingdom,” appears to be headed to a private sale. February in Boston has little to recommend it, but discerning dealers and collectors demonstrate an unsuspected hardiness when they converge anyway, drawn by the toothsome Americana offerings at Skinner’s quarterly auction February 17.
Sotheby’s February sale of contemporary art in London was record-breaking, realizing $189,423,299. It was the highest total for any contemporary art sale ever staged in Europe and the second highest total for any auction ever conducted at Sotheby’s in Europe.
The Walters Art Museum will present “Maps: Finding Our Place in the World” March 16–June 8.
Although the French Impressionists were dedicated to spontaneity and depicting contemporary life, their art was importantly influenced by the work of Old Masters and others who preceded them. While this theme has been examined with regard to individual Impressionists, the first show to explore those influences on a comprehensive basis is “Inspiring Impressionism: The Impressionists and the Art of the Past,” now on view through May 25 at the Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colo. Juxtaposing works by such pioneering Impressionists as Bazille, Cassatt, Cezanne Degas, Manet, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro and Renoir with those of El Greco, Raphael, Rubens and Velazquez, the exhibition demonstrates how conscious the new group was of the techniques, traditions and subject matter of those who had gone before. Featured are 86 works, including paintings and works on paper, drawn from 40 museums. Organized by the Denver Art Museum, it is co-curated by Denver’s deputy director for collections and programs, Timothy Standring, and Ann Dumas, a London-based independent scholar, in collaboration with the High Museum of Art (where it closed in January) and the Seattle Art Museum, where it will travel after closing in Denver.
The “exceptionally tasteful lifetime collection of fine art, furniture, decorative works of art, books, costume jewelry and couture” belonging to Manhattan socialite D.D. Ryan set the pace for an action-packed sale at Grogan’s this past weekend, March 1 and 2. The new relationship between Jenkins Management and Country Home magazine added to the enthusiasm for the 26th year of this Nashville show, now called Country Home Antiquing Festival at the Tailgate Antique Show. Were Josiah Wedgwood alive and working today, he would surely be regarded among the most popular Twentieth Century celebrity designers — standing firmly alongside the likes of Dale Chihuly and Jonathan Adler. Producing wares widely considered to be Modern, cutting edge and certainly defining the crux of elegance throughout the Eighteenth Century, Wedgwood, a brilliant entrepreneur and self-taught scientist, changed the very nature of porcelain and, in turn, transformed tabletop design into a symbol of taste and prosperity. The results of his dedication to a mass-produced art form can be seen in the more than 100 objects on view in the exhibition “Josiah Wedgwood and His Circle,” currently on view at the UBS Gallery in New York City through April 18. However, the lovely and delicate offerings of jasperware with their cameo-like reliefs and agate ware, compositions of pigment infused clay that look as much like natural stone as the stone itself, belie the ferocity of the process that produced them.
Alma Libby, longtime antiques dealer, died peacefully Wednesday, March 5, two weeks short of her 73rd birthday. (AP) — Police have recovered a painting by Swedish writer and painter August Strindberg that was stolen from a Stockholm museum two years ago and arrested two suspects, authorities said March 7.
One of the most significant groups of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci will be loaned to a US museum — the Birmingham Museum of Art (BMA) — for the first time. Organized by the BMA, the exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci: Drawings from the Biblioteca Reale in Turin,” will open September 28 and run through November 9.
The Delaware Art Museum presents “The Baroque World of Fernando Botero,” a major retrospective exhibition featuring 100 paintings, sculptures and drawings, on view March 15–June 8.
Veteran Florida auctioneer and antique dealer Frank Speal Jr, 65, of Frank’s Antiques died February 17 at Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville, Fla. The Greenlawn-Centerport Historical Association was the beneficiary of the 29th Greenlawn Antiques Show at Harborfields High School February 23 and 24. With about 70 dealers exhibiting, the show gives strong support to the historical association’s activities.
Amid the accolades and congratulations being showered on promoter Steve Allman by customers and dealers alike, the manager cleared the morning of February 23, and gave the signal for the 40th annual Holliston Antiques Show to open its doors. As the crowds rushed in, however, the ruby anniversary milestone was quickly forgotten, as it was back to business as usual, with shoppers filling the aisles and hustling to and fro.
Leighton Galleries’ January 24 sale, with more than 200 registered bidders, was its most successful to date, totaling nearly $600,000.
Contemporary realist-surrealist painter Samuel Rose died of cancer on February 18. He studied for 17 years with teacher-painter-historian R.H. Ives Gammell at Boston’s Fenway Studios and in Williamstown, and was considered a unique Boston School painter. R.M. Smythe & Co., Inc, held one of the most successful autograph auctions in its 125-year history on January 17. The sale, featuring the collection of Steven Lee Carson, saw more than 75 percent of the offered lots sell.
A fully sealed box of Peters Target 20-gauge shotgun shells in near perfect condition sold for a new world auction record price of $2,966 in SoldUSA.com’s online catalog sale that ended January 23–24.
Kaja Veilleux kicked off an exciting 2008 auction season on February 9–10 with a successful winter fine art, antiques and rare coin sale at Thomaston Place Auction Galleries.
Bedford police are investigating the larceny of a cast iron horse statue. As a complement to its current exhibition “Michelangelo, Vasari and Their Contemporaries: Drawings from the Uffizi,” the Morgan Library & Museum presents from its permanent collection a select group of related works by artists at the court of Duke Cosimo I dei Medici (1519–1574). “Draftsmen of the Medici Court: Drawings from the Morgan” is on view through May 11.
Fox Lane High School proved a grand venue for the Bedford Hills Antiques Show on February 23 and 24. Sponsored by the Lions Club, the venerable show — “My favorite,” as Martin Greenstein of The Last Detail Antiques Show refers to it — opens with a wide entry hallway leading to several open areas where almost 60 dealers set up for two days of selling. The most comprehensive retrospective to date of the work of internationally acclaimed Japanese artist Takashi Murakami will be presented at the Brooklyn Museum April 5 to July 13.
March may come in like a lion, but it was the Chester County Antiques Show that roared into town with a hearty offering of exemplary antiques March 1 and 2.
Greg Martin Auctions’ two-day winter event of edged weapons and fine and collectible arms and sporting guns concluded with another multimillion-dollar tally.
With the bidding that greeted the large cent collection of Walter Husak described by observers as “astronomical,” “incredible,” “feverish” and “stunning,” Heritage conducted the official auction of the Long Beach Coin Expo on February 14–16.
James D. Julia’s most recent antiques and fine art auction was its largest winter sale to date, grossing nearly $2.9 million over three days, January 31–February 2.
Since ancient times, humans have been fascinated with the concept of disguise. The exhibition “Masters of Disguise,” on display March 22–July 20 at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, offers a fresh look at a variety of art forms that skillfully illustrate the power of concealment.
Craigen Weston Bowen, deputy director of the Straus Center for Conservation at Harvard University’s Fogg Art Museum and an accomplished rock climber and gardener, died at her home in Lexington on March 1, 16 months after being diagnosed with cancer. She was 54. An unused 1869 24-cent inverted center US stamp, #120b, certified fine and one of only four unused examples known to exist, soared to $1.27 million at a sale of the Newport collection conducted February 9 by Philip Weiss Auctions.
Prime examples of Twentieth Century art and design took over the Gramercy Park Armory for three days as Stella Show Mgmt Co. presented its perennially popular Modern Show February 29 through March 2.
“One/Off Printmakers: 25th Anniversary,” on view at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) through April 11, is an exhibition of prints by members of One/Off Printmakers, a group of Richmond-based artists who share an interest in innovative approaches to printmaking.
Given this year’s 366 days, New Yorkers viewed Leap Day as an extra opportunity to squeeze in a bit more shopping. And the best shopping in town was to be had at Sanford Smith’s art show, Works on Paper, presented at the Seventh Regiment Armory. Seventy international dealers installed themselves in the swank setting and unveiled their finest offerings. One of the most idiosyncratic and skilled American self-taught artists of the Twentieth Century, Earl Cunningham (1893-1977) used broad, flat space and vivid color to create imaginary, Edenic landscapes filled with the unexpected and unlikely. A folk modernist who drew on his vision of an ideal, sublime past, he painted an unspoiled, serene America. Whether depicting familiar places in Maine or Florida or recreating historical scenes, Cunningham delighted in taking liberties with perspective, details and the actual appearance of places to construct his whimsical, make-believe world. After years in oblivion, Cunningham’s art has become recognized in recent years, culminating in “Earl Cunningham’s America,” now at the American Folk Art Museum’s Branch Gallery at Lincoln Square in New York City through August 31. Organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum senior curator Virginia M. Mecklenburg, the exhibition showcases nearly 50 of the more than 400 pictures Cunningham created.
A Fairfax, Va., circuit court judge ruled on February 22 that a Virginia man could claim title to a contested 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence that he had acquired privately for $475,000 in 2001 from a British rare book dealer. The enduring pleasure of a well-formed object is almost tangible. A collection of early American pine objects made, used and gathered lovingly is a testament to that pleasure. “American Style: Russell Kettell’s Pine Furniture,” on view at the Concord Museum in Concord, Mass., through May 18, exemplifies these pleasures as it showcases the objects of daily life and allows visitors to appreciate each and every piece. Some 120 objects culled from the more than 1,000 pieces Kettell collected are on view, with others drawn from the collections of Portsmouth, N.H., dealers Hollis Brodrick and Sharon Platt. Kettell was among the first to discover and revere the idiom of pine, and the furniture and articles on view are evidence of that reverence. This is a contemplative show, allowing the eye to meander along the lines of a box or a chest or a tool that was made to be used and was softened by that use. It is as much about the objects and about pine as about an extraordinary man. The objects are at rest now, but each speaks of the demanding tasks of early American life and those who performed them. As Concord Museum curator David F. Wood observes, “Every one is well worth contemplation.”
Historic pool tables are cradled in an historic setting as Blatt Billiards presents an exhibition of rare antique pool tables, artistic cues and billiard memorabilia at the National Arts Club in Gramercy Park. The word “auction” was synonymous with “surprise” on March 1 when a signed Gillow burlwood desk sold at Brunk Auctions for ten times its presale estimate. A phone bidder bought the desk for $126,500.
On March 2, nearly 1,000 people packed the 70-booth Cross River Winter Antiques Show in Westchester County.
“Angel Gabriel,” the 72-inch-long iron weathervane that came to wide attention when it was stolen, recovered and returned to its owner, the White Church Association, has been acquired by a private collector. Scheduling conflicts at Gaylord Opryland Hotel have forced St Louis, Mo., based show promoter Kramer Hunkins & Associates to reschedule the Heart of Country Antiques Show, typically on Valentine’s Day weekend, for March 13 and 14, 2009. The fascinating stories that emanated from the most recent sale at Northeast Auctions were as varied, numerous and interesting as the nearly 2,000 lots of merchandise that auctioneer Ron Bourgeault cycled across the auction block during his February Weekend Auction.
Dozens of dazzling Oriental rugs and textiles will be the centerpiece of “Woven Splendor from Timbuktu to Tibet: Exotic Rugs and Textiles from New York Collectors,” a major New-York Historical Society exhibition examining the history of the Oriental rug in New York and the story of the Hajji Baba Club.
Embracing "luxury recycling," Stella Show Mgmt Co. opened its spring edition of the Pier Antiques Show on March 15, featuring everything from repurposed industrial items and painted furniture to gently used vintage fashions and more.
St Charles Gallery kicked off its 2008 season with a well attended and highly competitive sale February 16 and 17. The two-day auction included more than 1,300 lots of fine English, French, American and Oriental antiques and decorative objects and jewelry.
It was standing room only at the Deforest Comfort Inn Convention Center where Wayne Yoder conducted a sale on February 9 as occupational shaving mugs, stoneware and art pottery collections went on the block.
Wayne Robert Adams, the managing partner of American Decorative Arts and its subsidiary, Crow’s Run Gallery, a private, customer-based antiques service, died on March 15, at his home after a battle with cancer.
There was plenty here to see at the March 1-2 edition of the Morristown Armory Antiques Show, an event known for its diversity. |
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