Looking to green the market for traditional art and antiques, the Art and Antique Dealers League of America (AADLA) launched Spring Show NYC at the Park Avenue Armory from April 27 to May 2.
“We believe that there is room in New York for a third event that complements the Winter and International shows,” said league president Clinton Howell, who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get the event off the ground.
The result was a greatly modernized forum for selling fine works of art, one that takes into account trends in collecting, decorating and demographics. Drawn from but not limited to the league’s roster, the 65-dealer fair ticked all the right boxes. It had good dates, a good venue, aggressive marketing support and handsome presentation.
The dealer-owned show is managed by the Art Fair Company, which produces the SOFA design shows and Intuit fairs in New York, Chicago and Santa Fe. The Art Fair Company is headed by two former DMG World Media executives, Michael Franks and Mark Lyman.
Spring Show NYC opened on Wednesday night with a sold-out preview benefiting ASPCA. The event drew nearly 1,500 people. On Friday, Arts’ Night Out attracted members of young patrons’ groups from 19 participating institutions.
League members gave serious thought to the look of the show. Large, high-walled booths painted in vivid colors opened to the soaring armory ceiling, lit to dramatic effect on opening night.
“We wanted to keep the show fresh, bright and cheerful,” Franks explained. Lars Bolander, best known for his airy, Swedish interiors, contributed to the overall design, which presented mostly traditional fare in clean, contemporary settings.
Bargains were sprinkled among many big-ticket treasures. Westport, Conn., dealer George Subkoff featured miniature furniture, marked from $2,800 to $28,000. Questroyal’s offerings ranged from a $4,000 flower painting by Hayley Lever to a $475,000 oil on canvas seascape by Alfred Thomas Bricher. Dealers said that lower overhead allowed them to bring more affordable merchandise. According to Franks, a 20-by-12-foot booth †including paint, lights and carpet †rents for $16,500 at this dealer-owned event.
High honors for presentation went to Carlton Hobbs, Hostler Burrows and Alexander Cohane. Hobbs split his dimly lit interior into separate displays, one devoted to an Eighteenth Century Spanish tile mural, $220,000, attributed to Vincente Navarro; the other to four early Eighteenth Century marquetry pictures, $485,000, done after engravings of the gardens at Nymphenburg Palace.
Against a Tiffany blue backdrop, Scandinavian Modern specialists Hostler Burrows displayed a birch and Naugahyde cabinet of around 1940 by German-born Otto Schultz and a large, stoneware figure of “St George and the Dragon,” $18,000, by Jais Nielsen for Royal Copenhagen.
Design was king at Alexander Cohane, an English dealer, who paired a gutsy table by Carlo Bugatti, circa 1900, with a lively French specimen-wood cabinet of circa 1830.
Exhibitors in English and Continental furniture updated their message by featuring objects in colorful settings free of historical references. At Clinton Howell Antiques, a pair of George III carved mahogany armchairs, $295,000, covered in satin the color of cinnabar contrasted sharply with lime green walls. A lacquered screen tied the ensemble together.
Dalva Brothers featured fine French furniture against an Etruscan red backdrop. Philip Colleck Ltd showed lushly patterned lacquer and paper panels against lapis-colored walls. L’Antiquaire & The Connoisseur picked a vibrant turquoise to offset muscularly carved, gilt-framed mirrors. Jayne Thompson rebooted English Georgian furniture by showing it in an eye-popping, emerald green room set.
Iliad’s graphic stand was a play between crisp Biedermeier and Art Deco silhouettes and large, abstract paintings.
“This is what we sell in our Hudson store. It’s the way our customers live,” said James Marinaccio of Naga Antiques, whose New York firm mixes Asian art with Biedermeier and Art Deco furniture. Naga sold its best Chinese pieces in the opening hours of the fair and followed with a two-panel Kyoto lacquer standing screen and a selection of Japanese lacquer boxes, bronze sculptures and vases.
A pair of Ming dynasty lions guarded the stand of Vallin Galleries, which sold a Nineteenth Century Japanese bronze pagoda to a new client and an Eighteenth Century sculpture of a standing Parvati.
Silver specialists Spencer Marks notched one of opening night’s biggest successes.
“They are as spectacular as anything that came out of his shop and they have never been on the market,” Spencer Gordon said of two silver and gold altar vases made by Arthur J. Stone and Herbert Taylor for the Pomfret School in Connecticut in 1915. The pair are under consideration by a major museum.
Other sales included a signed and dated patriotic crib quilt at Jeff R. Bridgman and a Boston classical work table at Charles & Rebekah Clark, who featured a seven-piece classical parlor suite, $45,000, of bird’s-eye maple made in Philadelphia around 1825 by Michel Bouvier and a six-light Argand chandelier, $48,000. Bridgman and the Clarks were among the handful of Americana dealers in the show.
“We are encouraged,” said New York dealer Paul Vandekar, who sold a set of 18 framed engravings of birds by Seligmann after Catesby, sailors’ woolworks and Flight & Barr Worcester porcelain. Other highlights at Vandekar were a fruit and flower still life painting from the studio of Severin Roesen and a Leeds pearlware figure of a stallion.
English furniture was well-represented. Michael Pashby sold a late Seventeenth Century coaching table. Kentshire Galleries wrote up a pair of George III armchairs. Philip Colleck Ltd placed a pair of satinwood cabinets with rosewood banding, and G. Sergeant Antiques found a new home for a 1755 partners’ desk. An oak Welsh dresser base left Jayne Thompson Antiques.
Moderately priced fare sold well for Yew Tree House, which parted with a carved and painted English springer spaniel, a child’s settle and a Seventeenth Century refectory bench. Across the aisle, Patrick Bavasi found success with regency furniture and accessories.
Notable sales of American art included Reginald Marsh’s tempera and watercolor on paper, “New York City Women,” at Questroyal Fine Art; Lillian Westcott Hale’s “Summer by the Ocean” at Avery Galleries; and three watercolors by John LaFarge and a drawing by Joseph Stella at Thomas Colville Fine Art.
Organizers vow to redouble their efforts next year, working to build New York’s Art and Antiques Week, proclaimed by Mayor Bloomberg for April 25 to May 1.
“The key to all the major fairs is bringing large numbers of people into town. We’ve got the show, now it’s a matter of letting people know that it is here and that they should see it,” said Paul Vandekar.
Show dates for 2012, not yet finalized, will be in early May.
For information, contact The Art Fair Company at 707-343-1301, the Art and Antique Dealers League of America at 212-879-7558 or www.springshownyc.com .
