The global art market moves firmly to North America in the New Year – first to New York for the series of events that have grown up around the venerable ‘Winter Antiques Show’ (January 25-February 3) and then to Florida for warmer climes and the ‘Original Miami Beach Show’ (January 31-February 4).
The Winter Show
Top dog in the New York antiques scene is
the Winter Antiques Show, now just a year short of her
60th birthday and still going strong.
The 59th Winter Antiques Show
takes place from January 25-February 3 as usual at the Park Avenue
Armory, and you can be sure that the great and the good from across
America will be flying in for the event, not least the glitzy
opening night party where tickets can set you back an eye-watering
$2500.
All proceeds from this night go to East
Side House Settlement, a charity that helps immigrants and
low-income families in the South Bronx. Hoping to encourage the
next generation, the Young Collectors Night on January 31 is also a
buzzy society evening, with tickets a touch more affordable at $175
a head.
This year's show welcomes eight new faces
among the 73 exhibitors of American, English, European, and Asian
art and antiques. Three are New Yorkers: Glass Past, specialists in
Italian glass from 1870-1970; Carlton Hobbs, a British dealer in
17th-19th century British and Continental furniture and works of
art, and Magen H with French post-War design.
Meanwhile, from Connecticut come Cove
Landing, with 18th and early 19th century English and Continental
decorative objects and American folk art and Americana specialist
Allan Katz Americana, while Delaney Antique Clocks travel from
Massachusetts for the first time.
The remainder are London dealers - the
artist's jewellery dealers Didier and Old Master specialists Derek
Johns and Theo Johns Fine Art, who will share a stand.
They join other UK exhibitors for whom the
Winter Show has become an annual pilgrimage, among them
Roger Keverne, Rupert Wace, Daniel Katz and Peter Finer.
New York Ceramics Fair
The New York Ceramics
Fair returns for the third year to the Grand Ballroom of
the Bohemian National Hall, the home of the Czech Consulate, on
East 73rd Street from January 22-27, to coincide with New
York's Winter Antiques Show.
Caskey Lees have been organising this fair
for 14 years and it is now bedded in as the go-to event for
ceramics enthusiasts from both sides of the Pond, with an
accompanying series of lectures by dealers and collectors
throughout the fair, covering areas such as Staffordshire pottery
in Colonial America and ceramic collecting in the 21st century.
The lectures reflect the breadth of what is
on offer at the fair, a mix of all things 'fired', be that
porcelain, pottery, glass, cloisonné or enamels, from all
periods.
In 2011, a combination of uncertainty over
the new venue and the unstable economy hit exhibitor numbers,
dropping from 40 in 2010 to just 30. But confidence appears to be
returning with around 36 exhibitors this year.
This is arguably one of the largest fairs
dedicated to ceramics in the world, and it has a strong following
among the UK ceramics trade, who each year make up around a third
of the exhibitors here alongside the body of American exhibitors
and a handful from continental Europe.
In 2013 there will be about ten Brits
exhibiting, among them Kinghams Art Pottery, new this year, and
regular exhibitors such as Garry Atkins, Christopher Sheppard
Glass, Mark J. West, Martyn Edgell, Santos, Carmen Pattinson and
Sylvia Powell, who between them will span the centuries from early
18th century pottery and porcelain to 20th century studio
ceramics.
One regular British exhibitor is pottery
specialist John Howard, normally based in the Cotswolds, and one
unusual piece that he will take to New York is this pearlware
phrenology head, left, c.1820, which is attributed to the
Portobello area of Scotland and priced at £4400.
Also a familiar face at this fair is London
dealer Roderick Jellicoe, a porcelain buff, who will take the
c.1755 Chelsea Hans Sloane botanical plate, pictured above, 9¼in
(23cm) diameter, which has a price tag of £4000.
New York
International Numismatic Convention
January is also the month when New
York hosts the New York International Numismatic Convention
(NYINC). The 41st staging runs from January 5-14 at the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel.
The Convention includes a series of
auctions staged by a variety of specialist numismatic
auctioneers. Amongst them is the two-day sale held by TheNew
York Salegroup.
A joint venture between London-based
Baldwin's, M&M Numismatics Ltd of Washington DC, USA and Basel,
and Dmitry Markov Coins & Medals of New York, these events tend
to offer pre-eminent single lots and collections that have been put
aside for the purpose of a grand staging in the Big Apple.
Auctions 30 and 31, scheduled for January 9
and 10, promise to keep that tradition going. The first day of the
two-day event will cover ancient and world coins, including a
number of ancient Greek coins and a group of over 50 Islamic
rarities. Day two will, as usual, focus on Russian coins, orders
and medals.
Highlights include a Syracuse, Dionysios I
(c.405-367BC), silver tetradrachm from Sicily by the master artist
Kimon, depicting the facing head of Arethusa. She is seen to have
an ampyx in her hair upon which the sculptor's signature is
partially visible. The signature can also be seen on the exergual
line of the reverse of the coin.
The reverse of the coin shows a quadriga
viewed in three-quarter perspective. The horses are rearing and
tossing their heads as they speed towards their point of
victory.
Billed as one of Kimon's greatest
achievements and the most important of the late fifth century B.C.,
it comes with an estimate of $100,000.
Master Drawings New
York
As the Winter Antiques
Show takes over the Park Avenue Armory, to capitalise on
the influx of collectors and curators the galleries of the
surrounding Upper East Side fill with co-ordinated exhibitions from
resident and visiting dealers for Master Drawings New
York from January 26 to February 2, with a preview on
January 25.
The younger spin-off of Master
Drawings London, launched in 2001,MDNYis now in its seventh
year and this year 27 dealers from the UK, USA, France, Italy,
Spain and Germany will take part with a series of exhibitions
within walking distance of each other. In case the name should
confuse you, it is not just Old Masters on show, as the works date
from the 16th century to the present day, although there is more of
a weighting towards earlier works.
Master Drawings founder and
dealer Crispian Riley-Smith is based in Yorkshire and is one of a
handful of UK-based specialists who will travel to New York to take
part, alongside London dealers Stephen Ongpin and Lowell Libson,
and James Mackinnon from West Sussex.
Four international dealers will take part
for the first time this year: Paolo Antonacci from Rome who will
exhibit at Graham, 32 East 67th Street; Pandora Old Masters at Leon
Tovar Gallery, 16 East 71st Street, and Marianne Elrick-Manley and
Artur Ramon who will both exhibit at Leight Morse Fine Arts, 22
East 80th Street.
Stephen Ongpin, who is returning to the
event this year after not taking part in 2012, will take a delicate
sketch by French symbolist Odilon Redon (1840-1916) titled The
Sleeping Child, in watercolour, gouache and pencil on card.
The 7 x 10in (18 x 26cm) work from 1916, pictured here, is priced
in the region of £40,000.
Retreating a few centuries to Old Master
works, also shown here is a c.1646 Study for the Sala di
Apollo, Palazzo Pitti by Roman artist Pietro da Cortona
(1596-1669). The 7½ x 10in (19 x 25cm) study in black chalk, with
traces of white heightening, will be exhibited by New York dealer
Margot Gordon and priced in the region of $400,000.
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