Fairs and Markets

The Frieze art fair (October 11-14) at Regents Park has already spawned two ‘tailgate’ events in the form of Scope and Zoo, but this year’s new addition is a little different.

A two-week exhibition of contemporary furniture featuring the work of some of the north of England’s top makers and designers is to be held at The Auction Centre in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, from August 21-31.

LOUISE Walker, who has been organising antiques fairs in Harrogate for the past 27 years, will launch a contemporary art fair in the North Yorkshire town next Easter.

THE antiques and collectors fairs at Alexandra Palace will not be returning following a breaking off in negotiations between the organisers and the venue’s new owners.

TRACEY Emin, who recently launched a scathing attack on Tower Hamlets Council after it granted a licence for a controversial three-month “city beach bar” in a car park yards from her Spitalfields home, is a regular visitor to Spitalfields Antiques Market, most recently looking for a tiara to wear to charity balls.

FIRST a dealer and now an organiser - Phil Savory, a Northamptonshire-based dealer in ceramics and treen who exhibits at fairs in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex, has decided to start his own fairs venture, PJ Fairs.

It’s doubtful that the average person associates car boot sales with burlesque dancers, but that’s the combination you’ll find at the Art Car Boot Fair 2007 in London’s Brick Lane.

COOPER Antique Fairs have a new venue for their latest antiques fair: The Royal Masonic School for Girls, Chorleywood, Hertfordshire.

Partridge Fine Art lost £250,000 worth of jewellery to thieves at the Summer Olympia Fair. The thieves struck at the dealers’ stand on Sunday afternoon, when four items were taken. The police were informed immediately and Partridge spokesman Oscar Humphries told ATG that they were hopeful of recovering the gems.

CHICAGO-based art event promoter Mark Lyman has been appointed vice president of International Fine Arts Expositions (IFAE) by owner dmg world media. IFAE’s American flagship event is The Palm Beach Fair and Palmbeach Contemporary Art Fair.

FOLLOWING rumours in the trade, London-based fair organisers Brian and Anna Haughton have confirmed exclusively to ATG that they will launch a high-end international fair in Dubai next February.

The increasingly prosperous North East of England will receive its first high-end antiques fair next February when 27 LAPADA or BADA dealers descend upon Linden Hall, near Morpeth in Northumberland.

ARTHUR Swallow Fairs are having free entry on Wednesdays at their two-day Tuesday/Wednesday events at RAF Swinderby.

PRESTIGE Ceramic Fairs have a new and attractive venue; in Kent at the 16th century Sutton Valence School which is set in 100 acres of grounds in the Weald of Kent, near Maidstone.

THE winter Antiques For Everyone fair at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre has been brought forward a month to November 1 to 4 from November 29 to December 2.

FLORIDA-based art world entrepreneur David Lester has put back the launch of SeaFair, his fine art yacht, from June to September.

THE Buxton Antiques Fair has been running for 43 years, which must make it one of the UK’s longest established dateline fairs.

“WE’VE got 1700 exhibitors at our March fair at the East of England Showground and we’ve been fully booked for six weeks now, with 1100 stallholders inside three large halls – including the Cambridge Suite with fine quality pieces – and marquees, and 600 dealers outside,” said Chris Hart of Bob Evans Fairs , the organiser of the twice-yearly Peterborough Festival of Antiques.

One of the highlights of this year’s TEFAF (The European Fine Art Fair) in Maastricht was this delightful Chinese Warring States bronze wine pourer formed as a tapir on the stand of St James’s, London Oriental specialists Littleton and Hennessy.

FOR the third successive year, dealers from the UK’s two major antiquarian bookselling organisations, ABA and PBFA have combined forces at the Edinburgh Book Fair which this year takes place on March 23 and 24 in Edinburgh’s Assembly Rooms.