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Foreword writer Dan Graf hit the nail squarely on the head as this reference book fills a void by illuminating the entire body of work created by Boyd, New Hampshire’s premier decoy maker.
Brimfield in July may be the smallest of the thrice-a-year gatherings of several thousand antiques dealers and many thousand more shoppers, but it is also the most fun.
The second stop on the annual series of New England decoy auctions featured a stellar selection of decoys and select sporting artwork offered by Steve and Cinnie O’Brien and their firm, Copley Fine Arts Auctions.
While the eyes of the antiques world are focused on the numerous antiques shows that make up Antiques Week in New Hampshire, taking place this week, August 3–8, it is worth noting that some of the best antiques and art available for viewing in this former industrial hub are located a short trip across town at The Currier Museum of Art. When not shopping the shows, or at any time for that matter, this venerable institution is well worth a visit. The Currier is an internationally renowned art museum that features American and European paintings, decorative arts, photographs and sculpture. The art collections include works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Georgia O’Keeffe, Andrew Wyeth and Rockwell Kent. The antique furniture and accessories holdings are rich with regional silver, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century New Hampshire furnishings and folk art, as well as contemporary crafts.
The first of the annual weeklong series of New England summertime decoy auctions kicked off on Monday, July 13, with Ted Harmon’s Decoys Unlimited two-day sale attracting a good crowd.
Capping off seven consecutive days of decoy-filled sales, the attention of collectors shifted north for the second time in the course of a week as the New England series of decoy auctions headed for Maine July 17 to Guyette & Schmidt.
This summer’s edition of the East Hampton Antiques Show, a benefit for the town’s historical society, offered a fresh approach to this annual event. In a show filled with early Twentieth Century styles and folk art as well as traditional antiques, visitors were treated to a wide array of home furnishings. Rare early American quilts from the Old Sturbridge Village collection will be on display during Textile Weekend, August 8–9.
On June 22 a Yoshimoto Nara painting of a young girl was stolen from a private residence here where it had been stored in a locked safe, according to an announcement by Art Loss Register. Winterthur Museum & Country Estate is the exclusive venue of a significant new exhibition, “Faces of a New Nation: American Portraits of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” The exhibit will remain on view through January 24.
A large ivory collection from a Miami doctor, the result of a 30-year collecting effort, provided the backbone of a series of sales at Auction Gallery of the Palm Beaches. Auction gallery owner Brian Kogan reported brisk sales to numerous Asian collectors with significant online results.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907), the greatest American sculptor of his day and arguably the nation’s finest sculptor ever, melded classical and modern styles in public statuary of enduring interest and importance. His creative genius and deep sense of humanity contributed to works of timeless and universal appeal. From humble beginnings, Saint-Gaudens used cosmopolitan experience, energetic ambition and prodigious talent to change the course of American sculpture from a conventional classic aesthetic to a vibrant, naturalistic style based on his French Beaux-Arts training, and from marble to bronze as the preferred material for sculpture. His Farragut Monument was a seminal aspect of the evolution of American sculpture and, with Theodore Roosevelt, he transformed US coinage. “Augustus Saint-Gaudens in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” on view through November 15, celebrates the museum’s grand trove of the master’s work and related loans.
Strategically placed fans, at least a half dozen, were working hard, keeping temperatures bearable inside the main gym at Nauset Regional Middle School July 31, but it was the choice antiques on display that were red-hot at the Cape Cod Antiques Dealers Association’s antiques show opening at 5 pm for its three-day run.
About 90 antiques dealers set up beneath pristine white tents among the 36 acres of flowering gardens on the Elm Bank property for Marvin Getman's annual antiques show here.
It was obvious to Julia’s even before the first lot hit the block that this was going to be no ordinary sale. In an absentee and Internet bid-driven trade, Julia’s auction facility was brimming June 26 with one of the largest crowds it had seen at an advertising, toy and doll auction in many years.
Kelley Auctions saw standout antiques across a range of collecting categories at its July 8 auction.
During the early Twentieth Century, the use of ornament in industrial design received hostile response from avant-garde designers who increasingly favored the clean, austere lines of Modernism. An exhibition on view through September in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s Perelman Building celebrates the reemergence of ornament.
The Provincetown Art Association and Museum and Norman Mailer Writers Colony announce two special events featuring contemporary artist Walton Ford this weekend.
There are certain things you can count on every summer — corn shoots growing into cornfields, dripping ice cream cones and fireflies. You can also count on antiques dealers offering a wide range of antiques at Rhinebeck’s Summer Magic Antiques Fair, which took place July 25 at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds.
Vividly illustrated screens, scrolls, fans and printed books tell an ancient Japanese story of a monster, samurai and sake in the exhibition “The Tale of Shuten Doji,” at the Smithsonian’s Arthur M. Sackler and Freer Gallery of Art through September 20.
Washington Metro Police are investigating a home burglary and theft that occurred between July 22 and August 1 involving a collection of silver and jewelry valued at more than $100,000. The Phoenix Police Department is investigating a robbery from a jewelry dealer’s vehicle parked outside a seafood restaurant on July 12. More than $100,000 in jewelry was stolen in a van break-in while the owners were inside the restaurant eating dinner. The Syracuse University Art Galleries in Syracuse and the Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery at SU’s Joseph I. Lubin House in New York City will jointly present the exhibition “Winslow Homer’s Empire State: Houghton Farm and Beyond” this fall.
The centennial celebration of the Ballets Russes in Paris provided the theme to Theriault’s July 12 doll auction because featured on the cover of the auction catalog was a rare French doll made in Paris in 1915 that had a close relationship with that iconic ballet troupe.
For the fourth year there was a full house of exhibiting dealers at the Westhampton Beach Antiques Show, a fundraising event for the village’s historical society, which took place July 18–19.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907), the greatest American sculptor of his day and arguably the nation’s finest sculptor ever, melded classical and modern styles in public statuary of enduring interest and importance. His creative genius and deep sense of humanity contributed to works of timeless and universal appeal. From humble beginnings, Saint-Gaudens used cosmopolitan experience, energetic ambition and prodigious talent to change the course of American sculpture from a conventional classic aesthetic to a vibrant, naturalistic style based on his French Beaux-Arts training, and from marble to bronze as the preferred material for sculpture. His Farragut Monument was a seminal aspect of the evolution of American sculpture and, with Theodore Roosevelt, he transformed US coinage. “Augustus Saint-Gaudens in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” on view through November 15, celebrates the museum’s grand trove of the master’s work and related loans.
H. James “Jim” Jackson, founder of Jackson’s International Auctioneers & Appraisers of Antiques and Fine Art, died on August 9, after a two-year battle with cancer. He was 78.
A new look and professional management had dealers giving words of praise for the 60th anniver-sary All Saints’ Antiques Show. The show was conducted July 29–August 1 at the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center.
The Newport Jazz Festival was not the only thing in town over the weekend of August 7–9 that was making for lively times and sweet music. Moving to a beat of its own, the Newport Antiques Show opened across town on Friday evening, with a well-attended gala preview party and continued its two-day run over the course of the weekend.
Overflowing with neat and colorful things, the personal collection of the late Sally Schell Whittemore was warmly received by collectors and dealers alike at Skinner’s August 9 Americana auction, the first sale of country material to be conducted at its new facility.
From a Cape Cod estate barely ten miles down the road, the runaway favorite of Eldred’s three-day auction, August 5–7, was the pre-Civil War tin hose reel in red, yellow and gold paint that drew the attention of a dozen or so collectors who drove its final price to $48,875.
Major dealers and collectors were represented as New Hampshire Antiques Week kicked off with Northeast Auctions’ three-day sale July 31–August 2. The sale brought some exceptional regional material to market.
On June 6–7, Cincinnati Art Galleries held its 19th annual June sale of keramics, art glass and Rookwood. As has come to be expected, a fine assortment was presented in the three-session sale.
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) announce that several important acquisitions made earlier this year are now on view in the permanent galleries of the Legion of Honor and the de Young Museum.
“Dove/O’Keeffe: Circles of Influence” at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute through September 7 explores the visual and thematic interests shared by these two pioneers of Twentieth Century painting.
Milo Merle Naeve, 77, American art historian, curator and museum director, died on August 10, after a recent diagnosis of lung cancer. Americana dealer Leigh Keno has announced the formation of Keno Auctions, a “full service” auction house that is scheduled to conduct its inaugural sale this coming May.
Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait’s oil on canvas “A Check — Keep Your Distance,” reproduced as a print by Currier & Ives in 1853, went to a phone bidder for $381,000 at Northeast Auction’s annual summer tent sale at Treadwell House on August 15–16. Widely recognized as one of the stars of international contemporary design, Ron Arad (b 1951) stands out for his bold approach to form, structure and materials in work that runs the gamut from industrial design and architecture to sculpture and mixed-media installations. His relentless experimentation with materials of all kinds, including steel, aluminum, bronze, crystals, thermoplastics, fiber-optics and light-emitting diodes, and his radical reinterpretation of established types of furniture, like armchairs, rocking chairs, desk lamps and chandeliers, have made him one of the most influential designers of our time. Unpredictable and adventurous, Arad’s designs reflect his joy in invention, pleasure, humor and pride in technical and constructive qualities. The first US retrospective of his oeuvre, “Ron Arad: No Discipline,” on view at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City through October 19, comprises about 140 works, including design objects and architectural models, as well as 60 videos.
When guests arrived at the preview party for the Nantucket Antiques Show on Thursday evening, July 30, they were treated to a show that not only met, but exceeded, their expectations.
America’s great tradition of self-taught art is comprehensively documented at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City. The museum has played a key role in promoting appreciation for all untutored artists, particularly since the 1980s for African American painters, sculptors and craftsmen. Currently on national tour is a selection of some of the museum’s treasures in “Ancestry and Innovation: African American Art from the American Folk Art Museum,” on view at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, S.C., through October 11. The wide-ranging exhibition of some 40 works in various media explores the artistic expressions of self-trained black artists from the rural South and the urban North. Interspersed with compelling, colorful quilts, the paintings and sculptures celebrate the continuing contributions of African Americans to the nation’s cultural and visual experience.
Excitement within the rare book community reached a fever pitch as the June 10 rare books and manuscripts sale drew to a close at Bonhams.
A stellar selection of American stoneware with an emphasis on early incised and decorated pieces made for good fodder at Crocker Farm’s auction July 11.
Duane Merrill & Company sold a 31-by-41-inch pastel on paper, “The Painter’s Daughter Irene,” 1911, by Boris Kustodiev (Russian, 1878–1927) for $341,000 during its June 27 auction.
The Start of Manchester Antiques Show, August 4–5, at C.R. Sparks was again greeted by big crowds of shoppers inspecting fresh collections of antiques in Americana motifs.
With an 82 percent sell-through rate by lot, Freeman’s June 21 sale of fine American and European paintings and sculpture proved to be a great success with 102 of the 127 lots finding buyers and the sale totaling $1,182,000.
With the Manchester Pickers Market under the belt, the new and the faithful who attend Antiques Week in New Hampshire moved on to spend a pleasant day on the Deerfield Fairgrounds, enjoying Nan Gurley’s Americana Celebration on August 4.
Where floor plans are concerned, it is the rare antiques show that deviates from the norm. Most are as regular as a grid painting by Mondrian. Barn Star Productions chief Frank Gaglio got a lesson in living off the grid with a new venue for his flagship Mid*Week in Manchester, August 5 and 6.
In the Morgan Library & Museum’s first exhibition devoted to William Blake in two decades, former director Charles Ryskamp and curators Anna Lou Ashby and Cara Denison have assembled many of Blake’s most spectacular watercolors, prints and illuminated books in William Blake’s World: ‘A New Heaven Is Begun,’” on view September 11 to January 3.
On view September 24-November 15, the New England Quilt Museum’s first exhibition of the fall season, “Master Pieces: Haberdashery Textiles in Antique Quilts,” features quilts made from menswear, some of it recycled clothing.
As it has nearly every time for the past 52 years, the August 6–8 New Hampshire Antiques Show drew a crush of shoppers and elicited fervent praise from its legendarily loyal fans.
An Eighteenth Century Boston schoolgirl sampler soared at Thomaston Place Auction this past Saturday, August 22, when it fetched $465,750. The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art has completed a large-scale reinstallation of its famed Hudson River School collection.
Dealers and customers alike praised the new venue for the Manchester Pickers Market and Mid*Week in Manchester, the two shows produced by Barn Star Productions as part of Antiques Week in New Hampshire.
Early Deadlines Due to the Labor Day holiday, deadlines for the issue of Antiques And The Arts Weekly dated September 11 are as follows: EARLY AUCTION: Wednesday, September 2, 10 am DISPLAY Wednesday, September 2, 10 am REGULAR AUCTION Thursday, September 3, 10 am The office will be closed Monday, September 7, and the paper will be mailed Tuesday, September 8.
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