Art and antiques news from 2010

LONDON'S brand new fair, Masterpiece, closed on June 29, but already by the end of the preview on June 23 it was clear that not only was the event a winner, but it had broken the mould of international antiques fairs.

THE latest Impressionist & Modern art auction series in London saw rising returns for the salerooms but buyers reacted unfavourably to heavy estimates on the most expensive works.

THE Art and Antique Dealers League of America are to launch a new antiques fair at the Park Avenue Armory on Manhattan’s Park Avenue from April 28 to May 2 next year.

A GROUP of five photographs by pioneering British photographer Roger Fenton (1819-1869) sold for £100,500, some five times above their combined estimate, at Dominic Winter of South Cerney, Gloucestershire on June 17.

THE Federation of European Art Gallery Associations has added its voice to the debate over the Artist’s Resale Right, demanding the European Commission carry out the promised impact study immediately.

HOUSE contents sales always create a frisson of excitement. Alongside the stars of the show, big-ticket pieces that comes trailing clouds of pre-sale publicity, there is the potential thrill of the unexpected, the serendipitous attractions of the less elevated contents of cellar, outhouse and attic, which hold out the possibility of a bargain.

PRESERVING the Past, Protecting the Future, Collecting and Conserving Fine and Decorative Arts, is a new fine arts conference scheduled for September 14-16 at Buckinghamshire New University in High Wycombe.

ANTIQUES Trade Gazette has won a Green Apple media award for its promotion of the Antiques Are Green campaign.

THE European Commission has reneged on a legal undertaking to review the effects of the Artist’s Resale Right in the UK before it is extended to the estates of dead artists.

IT may have been an exceptional piece that generated an equally exceptional level of presale interest but, even still, few people present at Christie's Paris for the sale of Amedeo Modigliai's (1884-1920) Tête were expecting it to become the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction in France.

DEALERS at another antiques arcade in Portobello Road are having to vacate the centre after being given notice to quit.

THE unexpected highlight of the sale conducted by Cheffins of Cambridge on June 9-10 came courtesy of this mahogany writing table. Estimated at £4000-6000, it sold at £68,000 (plus 17.5 per cent buyer's premium).

THERE can be no more important figure in British inter-War aviation than the aircraft designer Reginald Joseph Mitchell (1895-1937).

CINOA, the international confederation of art dealers, are appealing for ATG readers' help in their latest study, entitled The Changing Role of the Art Dealer: Historical and Future Perspectives.

CERAMICS dealer Jonathan Horne, former Chairman of the BADA and Past Master of the Guild of Arts Scholars, Dealers and Collectors, was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to English ceramics.

FROM perfume bottles and menu holders to vases and car mascots, the glass creations of René Lalique remain consistently appealing to a varied gamut of buyers.

THE troubled internet entrepreneur and art collector Halsey Minor, who in March was ordered to hand over $6.6m for unpaid items ‘bought’ at Sotheby’s, has won a parallel legal battle with Christie’s.

THE first slice of the Longridge collection of early British pottery and European vernacular works of art, formed over 30 years by American Syd Levethan, was sold in two sessions for £2.93m by Christie's in King Street on June 10-11.

THE latest Russian art sales in the capital saw the continuing recovery of an important sector for London’s auctioneers. The market may lack the free spending seen before the downturn in October 2008 but the June sales were significantly up on the equivalent series last year.

BEIJING auctioneers Poly established a new milestone for Chinese art on June 3 selling a 38ft (15m) long calligraphic hand scroll by a Song Dynasty master for RMB390m ($57.4m) plus 12 per cent buyer's premium.