The wow factor is on view through May 17 at the Brooklyn Museum in the gemlike exhibit “From the Village to Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith.” A tiny show, comprising 21 pieces by Art Smith and supplemented by 30 other works by his contemporaries, it has been drawing crowds on a daily basis. The reason: Smith’s grand and sensuous aesthetic that characterizes his creations. For Smith, a piece of jewelry was not complete in itself until it related to the body. At the same time, his designs are so dazzling that each piece can be displayed on its own as a work of art. The exhibit was born of the 2007 gift of 21 pieces of Smith’s art from his companion, Charles L. Russell, who inherited them from Smith’s sister. It is a grand acknowledgement of that gift.
Visitors returned after two years away from the Mount Desert Island High School gymnasium for the Bar Harbor Antiques Show July 29–30.
Mother Nature’s art was celebrated at Bonhams & Butterfields’ natural history auction on June 22, collecting more than $1 million for exotic gems and minerals, spectacular prehistoric fossils, remnants of dinosaurs, meteorites and desirable examples of Earth’s natural wonders.
The Union Arena was filled to capacity with dealers and antiques for the 11th annual Green Mountain Antiques Show July 26–27. Heritage Auction Galleries had its most valuable summer American Numismatic Association (ANA) convention ever on July 30–August 3, realizing $41,022,713 for significant and classic rarities from all series in American numismatics.
The robbing of “barons” of millions worth of art and antiques has ended for a notorious gang of thieves — four of them members of the Johnson family — when they were recently given jail sentences following a two-decade-long crime spree.
Opening September 9 and on view through December 14, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum will present “Ancient Bronzes of the Asian Grasslands,” an exhibition that introduces modern viewers to the vibrant world of the eastern steppes through small, personal objects.
While there are quite a number of social events upscale islanders want to be seen at during the high season here, few are as revered and impressive as the annual August Antiques Show.
The ranks of collectors, antique dealers and museum curators are diminished by the death of Dan McNamara on July 31 at age 70. Profiles in History offered more than 1,100 iconic Hollywood items at a two-day Hollywood memorabilia auction July 31–August 1.
The popular annual summertime sale of American and European art conducted by Rob and Annette Elowitch of Barridoff Galleries was once again well received by art enthusiasts.
The Marion Antiques show and sale has a lot going for it and presented a strong showing at its August 15-16 edition. In a twist of fate, Paula and Howard Ellman, New York City dealers specializing in Tiffany art glass, discovered they had bought four pieces of art glass at auction recently that were stolen from them over 30 years ago.
The Delaware Art Museum presents “Hispanic Lives, Latin Worlds — Simple Complexities (Vidas Hispanas, Mundos Latinos — Simplicidad y Complejidad),” an exhibition featuring more than 25 works of art by Hispanic artists, on view till October 12.
The Gettysburg Foundation and the National Park Service will welcome visitors — for the first time in more than a century — to a complete “Battle of Gettysburg” cyclorama experience, beginning September 26.
Billed as an antiques and art extravaganza, James D. Julia’s three-day sale at the Samoset Resort delivered on the promise with a $5 million auction on August 26–28. The sale’s total was Julia’s highest grossing Samoset auction to date. Stuart Cary Welch Jr, curator emeritus of Islamic and later Indian art at the Harvard Art Museum and former special consultant in charge, department of Islamic art, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, died on August 13, while traveling in Hokkaido, Japan. He was 80 years old. Ralph M. Kovel, nationally known antiques author and expert, died August 28, in Cleveland. Red Baron is riding into the sunset with an “End of an Era” sale on September 27 and 28.
A version of Edward Hicks' iconic “The Peaceable Kingdom” is again attracting anything but pacific vibes with auction house Sotheby's suing the buyer of “The Peaceable Kingdom With the Leopard of Serenity” for not paying for the painting he won at auction back in May. An important painting by American artist Martin Johnson Heade and a monumental pair of Sevres architectural scale urns soared to unexpected heights at Thomaston Place Auction Galleries’ Labor Day weekend sale on August 30 and 31. “We are pleased with the date change and look at it as a chance for the show to grow every year,” said Jim Dunn, manager of the 34th annual Antiques Show sponsored by the Vermont Antiques Dealers’ Association, regarding the August 23–24 show. It was business as usual for auctioneer Ron Bourgeault and his staff at Northeast Auctions as they established an energetic pace for the start of Antiques Week in New Hampshire.
Facing a fiscal crisis, the town fathers here are considering selling a 115-year-old Tiffany window depicting a fictional American Indian princess that was recently appraised at just under $3 million.
Over the course of a long and productive career, George de Forest Brush (1854/1855-1941) melded academic painting skills acquired in Europe with themes ranging from Native American life to mother-and-child portraits. Much admired in his day for his precise draftsmanship, astute coloring and careful observation, his work was overtaken by changing tastes and is little heard about today. Stimulated by unearthing of new information and rediscovered lost paintings, “George de Forest: The Indian Paintings,” on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., through January 4, assembles for the first time 21 of his remarkable canvases on Indian subjects. Drawing on first-hand observations of Indian life and culture, Brush depicted what he called “those habits and deeds in which we have feelings in common.” According to exhibition organizer Nancy K. Anderson, curator of American and British paintings at the National Gallery, the artist “saw in the subject of the Indian an opportunity to explore the universal, the essential, human experience.” Together, these paintings reveal a master applying disciplined realism to a distinctly American subject, while suggesting Brush’s complex meditations on the impact of modern civilization on Native Americans he admired.
Mastro Auctions’ live sports auction August 1 set auction records and raised money for Derrek Lee’s 1st Touch Foundation. A new auction record was established for a baseball card at public auction when a 1909 T206 Honus Wagner card sold for $1.62 million.
Now in its 13th year, Galloway Fairs’ August fine art and antiques fair at Stonyhurst College is one of Galloway’s smallest. The select event ran from August 15 to 17. The little French elephant in the jaunty green suit who wears a yellow crown, the much beloved Babar, has finally arrived in America. Cherished by generations of children and adults, Babar, and how he came to be, is now the subject of an exhibition at the Morgan Library in New York City on view through January 4 titled “Drawing Babar: Early Drafts and Watercolors.” The exhibition comprises some 175 manuscript materials and drawings, including most of the surviving working drafts of Jean de Brunhoff’s first Babar story, the 1931 The Story of Babar, and of Laurent de Brunhoff’s first Babar story, the 1946 Babar and That Rascal Arthur. The exhibit is drawn from the Morgan Library’s collection of Babar material, acquired in 2004 from the De Brunhoff family. The collection was a partial gift of the sons of Jean de Brunhoff — Laurent, Mathieu and Thierry — and a partial purchase.
The rumor mill had barely stopped spinning in regard to the recent announcement concerning the cancellation of the Fall Hartford Antiques Show when it was set into motion once again as show manager Frank Gaglio declared his intentions to promote a new show in Hartford.
On September 8, Christie’s launched its first sale dedicated exclusively to works by international contemporary designers.
Japan Society will present “New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters,” the first exhibition, inside or outside Japan, to focus exclusively on nonfunctional bamboo works of art, October 4–January 11 at Japan Society Gallery.
On August 8–10, the Maine Antiques Festival was again the destination for about 250 antiques dealers with their collections of American antiques from the earliest colonial times to the early Twentieth Century.
Tiffany’s stained glass, replete with luscious depictions of poppies, grape vines, lotus, daffodil, dogwood and wisteria, are shown in magnificent lamps and windows. “Tiffany Lamps: Articles of Utility, Objects of Art,” opening at Nassau County Museum of Art (NCMA) Sunday, September 21.
A consummate collector who passed away last year, J. Welles Henderson’s collection became part of a $7.9 million auction over the weekend of August 15–17 conducted by Ron Bourgeault’s Northeast Auctions.
“Lino Tagliapietra in Retrospect: A Modern Renaissance in Glass,” on view at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum October 3–January 11, is the first exhibition to thoroughly examine the art of Lino Tagliapietra.
“We did not see any signs of a weak economy and things went very, very well for us,” Melvin “Butch” Arion said of his York Antiques Show & Sale on August 29–31.
A rare and revealing letter documenting Elvis Presley’s very personal “GI Blues” headlined R&R’s August auction, which concluded on August 13.
For the second year running, fine paintings, exquisite furniture and marine antiques displaced the hockey goals and ice in the rink at St George’s School, where 41 first-rate dealers set up for the Newport Antiques Show.
On September 1, Stover’s Auctions reported the theft of a tag that was affixed to an important Civil War lot with multiple items from a captain in the battle of New Bern, N.C. A sword was included, which had an old cloth tag attached to it from the same captain. The tag would add roughly $2,000–$3,000 to the lot. After a triumphant debut last year at the Brandywine River Museum, “Flights Into Fantasy: The Kendra and Allan Daniel Collection” is on view at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art through October 26.
On September 10, Christie’s Impressionist and Modern art department launched its fall season with its biannual midseason sale.
The Cincinnati Art Museum will present the first major US retrospective exhibition of the work of living Czech artist Jirí Anderle September 27–January 4, featuring four decades of Anderle’s work.
The pace was leisurely and the mood reflective at the final edition of Antiques in a Cow Pasture antiques show September 13, which attracted just over 50 exhibitors. (AP) — A dozen valuable paintings, including works by Marc Chagall, Diego Rivera and Emil Nolde, were stolen from the home of an elderly couple, and police issued an international alert to recover them. Robert C. Eldred Company's annual summer Americana, paintings and sporting art auction was a hotbed of activity, ensuring collectors and dealers keep coming back hungry for more.
Jenkins Show Management was pleased with a new record for the Farmington Antiques Weekend — the highest Sunday visitor total for the Labor Day weekend edition since it took over eight years ago.
A rare grand salon oil on canvas painting by prominent Dutch artist Anton Mauve (1838–1888) set a new world record price for the artist at auction when it was offered at Foster’s Auction Gallery August 30.
From October 11 through January 4, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will present “At Home with Gustav Stickley: Arts and Crafts from the Stephen Gray Collection.” The exhibition will feature approximately 140 works from a major private collection and related pieces from the museum’s permanent collections.
The porcelain factories of Berlin, Sèvres and Vienna achieved a remarkable level of artistic and technical skill in the first half of the Nineteenth Century. Approximately 75 fine examples from these three manufactories are on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the exhibition “Royal Porcelain from the Twinight Collection, 1800–1850.”
Offering a respite from the summer heat, the XL Center here hosted the 54th edition of the popular show Papermania Plus August 23–24.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art will present the first comprehensive museum exhibition of the art of James Castle (1899–1977), one of the most enigmatic and remarkable self-taught artists to emerge in the United States during the Twentieth Century in “James Castle: A Retrospective,” on view October 14 to January 4.
The anticipation was palpable as the original C.M. Russell bronze was brought up to bid in Richard Opfer Auctioneering, Inc’s recent antiques and estate auction.
Sotheby’s midseason sale of contemporary art on September 10 achieved $10,556,939.
The Vermont State Police are investigating the theft of several wooden animal sculptures from an art gallery belonging to Stephen Huneck. Jacob Hendrik Pierneef’s great painting “The Baobab Tree” sold on September 10 at Bonhams fourth South African art sale for $1.4 million, creating a new record price for South African art.
The Baltimore Summer Antiques Show featured more than 500 dealers in its 28th season, August 28-31.
Among the most recognized and sought-after names in contemporary glass artistry, Dale Chihuly has reached a point in his career that he accepts only about 60 new commissions a year. As everyone familiar with the artist’s work knows, that is no small undertaking. The chandeliers and millefiori forests, the gigantic floats and the flowers and glass ceilings that Chihuly draws and executes — in collaboration with a skilled team of hot shop artists known as “Team Chihuly,” — are breakthrough pieces. Chihuly has done for glass art what Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry did for museum architecture: stripped it of all preconceived notions and thrust it squarely into the realm of contemporary sculpture. His pieces have morphed over the years from weavings to table top designs to atrium-sized sculptures that spring like waterspouts from resort floors. Despite his fame — or perhaps because of it — Chihuly this year committed to a project that is taking him back to his roots, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, R.I., the place where it all began for him. As part of RISD’s inauguration celebration of the new multi-use Chace Center at the Museum of Art come two comprehensive exhibitions: “Chihuly at RISD” and “Studio Glass in Rhode Island: The Chihuly Years.”
Antiques hounds converged in droves at Round Top — not Texas — but at Round Top Farm, a former arts center now managed by the Damariscotta River Association, a fitting site for 100 dealers belonging to the Maine Antiques Dealers Association in a one-day show August 27.
The Madison-Bouckville antiques show began in 1971 as a small antiques event in a town filled with antiques shops. Word soon got out and the event grew like a weed in the corn patch to nearly 1,000 dealers in its heyday. |
