Edward Willis Redfield's painting "Snow Scene, Lumberville, Pennsylvania," fetched $163,800 at an Alderfer auction recently.
The Glebe House Museum & Gertrude Jekyll Garden will present “Treasures of Historic Woodbury 1700–1850,” an exhibition of Woodbury furniture and decorative arts on view from September 13 through October 18.
Green Mountain Antiques Show was on solid ground July 25–26 in spite of competition from many other popular New England area antiques shows that weekend with a full house of dealers and strong buying from a large audience. A collection direct from an original New Bedford whaling family was fresh to the market and drew a small but select crowd dominated by the trade to the Newport County Auction Gallery for the August 19 Gustave J.S. White auction. The Marion Antiques Show and Sale, a benefit for the Sippican Historical Society, offered its usual elegant and showy presentation during its August 14–16 run at Tabor Academy’s Fish Athletic Center.
Beth Caffery, curator of collections of Liberty Hall Historic Site, reported that on Friday, August 14, two miniature portraits were discovered to be missing.
Robert W. Haug, age 79, formerly of Strasburg, Penn., and Toms River, N.J., died August 24. Having an avid interest in antiques, Bob and Doris owned Cedar House Antiques, Strasburg, for more than 35 years. On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic voyage from the Netherlands to New York, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is sending “The Milkmaid,” perhaps the most admired painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (1632—1675), to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Alterations wrought on the early American landscape by the transportation revolution, which some historians date as having begun in New England around 1790, were profound and far-reaching. Roads and railways were built; canals were dug, and larger and faster steamers plied the waters of the young republic. The widespread ramifications were political, social, economic and artistic. While classically trained artists celebrated the grandeur of the American landscape, folk artists were inspired to create and embellish objects celebrating the burgeoning means of transportation. Captivated by their forms and functions, these generally anonymous but creative souls expressed themselves exuberantly, combining whimsy and meticulous calculation. A selection of such objects is on view in “By Land or By Sea: American Folk Art and the Golden Age of Transportation” at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vt., through October 25.
“The Baroque World of Fernando Botero” is the first major US retrospective presented in more than 30 years by Columbian artist Fernando Botero (b 1932).
“Exuberant Grotesques: Renaissance Maiolica from the Fontana Workshop” is the latest in a critically acclaimed series of dossier presentations organized by the Frick. The exhibition runs from September 15 through January 17.
“Kandinsky,” a full-scale retrospective of the paintings of Vasily Kandinsky — visionary artist, theorist and pioneer of abstraction — will be presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from September 18 through January 13.
In its debut as part of Heritage Auction Galleries’ Signature illustration art auction on July 15, and Signature art of the American West and Texas auction on July 16, Part I of the Charles Martignette Collection — some 311 works selected for these two auctions from the collection’s 4,300 pieces — realized a very strong $2.6 million.
An Indian rifle owned by White Man Runs Him, the scout for General George A. Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn, dominated the action at Kaminski Auctions, where it sold for $21,850.
Union Fairgrounds hosted the 28th year of the Maine Antiques Festival on August 7–9, where Paul Davis assembled more than 200 exhibitors in the barns, sheds and tented fields of the old fairgrounds.
Noel Barrett’s June 19–20 Toys of Summer auction recalled the simple charm of village life in late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century Europe with a parade of predominantly German-made tinplate characters and scale model marvels that grossed nearly $1 million.
Collectors of ephemera — or papermaniacs as they are fondly known — are especially energized by shows such as the recent ediition of Papermania Plus August 22 and 23 at the XL Center.
A Parker Brothers AA Pigeon Gun wood and metal advertising sign, one of only two known, sold for a record $7,543 in an Internet and catalog auction that concluded August 1–2 by SoldUSA.com.
“There seemed to be good energy at the show, the gate was up the first day, and interest in antiques appears to be picking up a bit,” Lucinda Seward of Pittsford, Vt., said following the close of the two-day VADA Antiques Show on August 23.
Wrapped in the fog of war for most of the Twentieth Century, Viet Nam has moved on. Today, it is a highly industrialized nation, a tourist destination, a foodie heaven. Yet, for many, Viet Nam’s place in the world — and in the world of art — is still a mystery. That will change somewhat over the course of the coming months as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) hosts the first American survey exhibition of Vietnamese art and culture. “Viet Nam: From River Plain to Open Sea” runs from September 13 through January 3 at MFAH. It then travels to New York’s Asia Society for an extended run. This landmark exhibit, which was 2,000 years in the making and 20 years in the planning, could not have been realized without the organizational supervision of the Asia Society and the goodwill of Viet Nam’s museums. Items in the exhibition are on loan from ten Vietnamese museums.
Anita (Scott) Maestas, 89, died September 5, at the Southington Care Center. She was the office manager for Antiques and The Arts Weekly from March 1971 until her retirement in October 2004. Stella Show Mgmt Co. filled three tents with exhibitors and their inventories and as in Field of Dreams, they came! The show, a benefit for Bridgehampton Historical Society, was held on their property in Bridgehampton Village August 14–16.
In the first major exhibition in 30 years to be dedicated to Brett Weston’s prolific body of work, “Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow” will be on view at the Currier Museum of Art October 10 to January 3.
Legendary Auctions live sports sale on July 31 drew more than 200 attendees to the high-end sports memorabilia event at the House of Blues, exceeding expectations and breaking industry records.
Beautiful weather for the week helped build exhibitors’ confidence in the original Madison-Bouckville Antiques Show, August 14–16. Nearly 800 dealer spaces were filled with early Americana, furniture from the last four centuries, household tools and accessories, great art and even some later collectibles.
On July 10 and 11, New England Toy & Train Exchange conducted an 870-lot auction of antique and vintage toys and trains that was well attended and boasted strong prices.
Collectors look forward to Northeast Auction’s annual marine, China Trade, and sporting art auction, a kind of three-ring circus under a big tent at Treadwell House each summer, renowned as a variety show featuring one great act after the next, from decoys to Chinese porcelain.
Antiques dealer Erhard Hennemann died on September 8 at the age of 83. He and his son, Craig, were a fixture at Cord Shows events for many years, known for fine and unusual porcelains, English Royal and Mao Zedong memorabilia, fine glassware and artwork. Opening September 18, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art presents “The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480–1650,” featuring 85 objects from the museum’s collection of Renaissance and baroque prints.
The collecting world is both more transparent and more opaque than ever before. While unprecedented publishing activity has accompanied the art market’s global expansion, many private collections remain resolutely off-limits to prying eyes, sometimes for generations at a time. Bucking the tide, Hyannis Port, Mass., dealers Alan Granby and Janice Hyland have collaborated on Flying The Colors: The Unseen Treasures of Nineteenth Century American Marine Art, lifting the curtain on privately held masterworks, both academic and primitive. Granby and Hyland strove to create “a representative visual reference” of the best marine art of the Nineteenth Century, when, combining form and function, American design reached its zenith in the clipper ships and yachts of the 1850s. Measuring more than 1 foot square and weighing six pounds, Flying The Colors is, in a word, lavish.
Those who knew him said Charles Burchfield looked like an unassuming, reticent small-town bookkeeper or accountant. In reality, Burchfield (1893–1967) was one of America’s most original artists and a premier Twentieth Century watercolorist. Most of Burchfield’s watercolors reflect fantasy interpretations of his childhood dreams and adult visions, but around 1918–1920, he applied his knowledge of European Modernist strategies and began to paint more abstractly with flattened space and arbitrary colors. The result was a series of austere architectural vignettes that reflected a skeptical native’s interpretation of the vernacular structures in and around small Midwestern towns — stark houses and industrial landscapes, stylized puffs of smoke, mines, railroad yards and barren trees. The evolution of this new aesthetic is documented in the first-ever exhibition on this period in the artist’s life, “Charles Burchfield, 1920: The Architecture of Painting,” on view at the Burchfield Penney Art Center at Buffalo State College, Buffalo, N.Y., through November 29.
Amos W. Shepard, 93, an eminent antiquarian specializing in antique English lighting fixtures and longtime resident of East Haddam, Conn., died on August 31 at Middlesex Hospital after a prolonged illness. The 12th annual Coastal Maine antiques show opened to a good, energetic gate of shoppers on August 26 on the bucolic grounds of Roundtop Farm.
The Fairfield Museum and History Center is unveiling a new marine art exhibit called “Salt Air & Sunlight: Coastal Views of New England” on Saturday, September 26.
Husband and wife team Jeff and Beverley Evans recently conducted their first two cataloged auctions under their new company, Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates, Inc., where the showstopper was a green opalescent swastika syrup pitcher that fetched $4,888.
Antiques dealer, Carolyn A. Petrus, 59, died Sunday, August 30, at her home. She was active in the antiques business for more than 30 years and was well known as an expert in textiles and Americana. Jerry Wilson died unexpectedly on Sunday, September 20, two days after his 56th birthday, in the Blue Mountain Lake region of the Adirondacks. A member of the Magoun Bros antiques team, he was with Jon Magoun and others taking part in the Antiques Show and Sale at the Adirondack Museum.
“That old rag. If I saw it in the garbage, I wouldn’t bother to take it out,” said textile specialist Stephen Huber in regard to an Eighteenth Century Boston schoolgirl sampler during preview at Thomaston Place Auction’s summer sale with a chuckle. Little more than an hour later, Huber paid more than $450,000 for the piece, establishing a record price paid at auction for an American sampler.
The artistic achievement of Georgia O’Keeffe is examined from a fresh perspective in “Georgia O’Keeffe: Abstraction,” an exhibition that recently debuted at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Concluding its 2009 season — a milestone 50th anniversary year — the Brimfield Antiques Market drew an enthusiastic throng of shoppers September 8–12, as many of them stretched a late Labor Day weekend into a labor of love, chasing and hopefully finding their heart’s desire among the megashow’s acres of antiques and collectibles.
A German-made Marklin live steam fire truck, circa 1912, brought $149,500, including buyer’s premium, at Bertoia’s September 25 and 26 auction of the Donald Kaufman collection of antique and vintage toys. Bob and Sallie Connelly staged an onsite estate auction August 8 that was highlighted by items as diverse as a Tiffany Venetian frame, an ivory-handled folding cane with a matching umbrella and a papier mache cartouche for “seegars.”
In a sale heavy with ornate Oriental carpets and elegant English and Tiffany silver, two humble Southern samplers topped all at Brunk Auctions’ sale on July 11.
Poster Auctions International and Long Island’s Cradle of Aviation Museum have teamed up to launch an exhibition of rare, early aviation posters. The exhibition is open through October 18.
“The Masterworks of Charles M. Russell: A Retrospective of Painting and Sculpture” will highlight more than 60 major works in oil and bronze by the renowned Western artist.at the Denver Art Museum on October 17.
The story of the annual Asian arts week at Eldred’s the last week of August was Chinese — all Chinese, all the time. Overseas bidders dominated the crowd and the phones.
The Monmouth County Historical Association will present “Craftsmen and Clients,” on view October 4–June at the Main Museum and Library.
The success of John Moran’s July 28 fine antiques and estate sale proved that even in a difficult economy buyers are seeking exceptional items with undiminished enthusiasm.
Linda Zukas continued her long streak of successful Antique Textiles and Vintage Fashions Shows at the Sturbridge Host Hotel and Conference Center September 7.
An artwork valued at $1.1 million and titled “Olympia” by the Surrealist painter Rene Magritte was stolen September 24 during a daylight robbery at a museum in Belgium. A burglary was reported at a home here that took place sometime between September 5 and 16, involving the theft of several pieces of antique furniture. Mary Delany's (1700–1788) series of 1,000 botanical collages, or “paper mosaics, are the focus of an ambitious exhibition, “Mrs Delany and her Circle,” on view through January 3 at the Yale Center for British Art.
Butch Arion’s 153rd semi-annual Original York Antiques Show, held over the weekend of September 4–6, boasted the largest opening crowd in recent memory as buyers sped through the aisles in search of antiques.
One of the most prolific and successful commercial artists of America’s Golden Age of Illustration, Joseph Christian (“J.C.”) Leyendecker (1874-1951) captivated the public with striking depictions of beautiful, glamorous young women and handsome, fashionable young men. A reclusive man of warmth, humor, imagination, talent and perception, he had his finger on the national pulse, producing artwork that appealed to a broad audience. Although he executed many paintings for other purposes, it was Leyendecker’s advertisements that made him famous, particularly “The Arrow Shirt Man.” Between 1896 and 1950, Lyendecker painted more than 400 magazine covers, of which well more than 300 were for The Saturday Evening Post. In spite of all these achievements, relatively little has been known about the man behind the illustrations until recent years. Now, an appealing and educational traveling exhibition, “J.C. Leyendecker: America’s ‘Other’ Illustrator,” organized by the Haggin Museum in Stockton, Calif., is currently on view at the William King Regional Arts Center, Abingdon, Va., through November 22.
On the polo grounds here in this Hartford suburb, 200 antiques dealers gathered September 5 and 6 with their collections and inventories to offer antiques, high-style designer furniture and accessories to the largest crowd in the past five years.
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