Fairs, Markets, Shops and Centres

“We aim to be the largest bricks and mortar antiques centre in Europe with the largest website,” says Robert Miller, managing director of Hemswell Antique Centres.

Work from 1880 returns to where it was made after it was offered at nearby antiques fair...

Alan Blakeman, lifelong rock climber and founder of niche business BBR Auctions in Elsecar, near Barnsley, had a good 2017.

A restored wall mask made by and indeed featuring the famed Art Deco ceramics designer Susie Cooper is one of the intriguing pieces for sale at Style 1900’s '20th Century Decorative Arts Fair'.

This is Liza Minelli as you might never have seen her – in this Polish poster by Wiktor Górka for the film Kabaret, which was created in 1973 for the first year of the film’s release in Poland.

A long-running biannual specialist fair has been renamed and will launch its first edition in London under a new organiser this month.

Jane Alexander of Dovehouse Fine Antiques Fairs is doing so well with her 70-dealer monthly fairs at the Dorking Halls in Surrey that she is taking extra space at the venue.

Maxine Stonehill of Pop Up Vintage Fairs has launched a new vintage fair, this time at the Art Deco Grade II-listed Walthamstow Assembly Hall.

The Morren Galleries in Utrecht is bringing this striking bronze Springende Haas (Leaping Hare), pictured , to Amsterdam’s First Art Fair. The work of Rotterdam sculptor Evert den Hartog, it is priced at €6750, and measures 19 x 20 x 5in (47 x 52 x 12cm).

Mulling over her 2017 experience, B2B Events’ director Helen Yourston said Malvern is proving to be a marvel.

The former main London airport is an appropriate venue to hold the annual Croydon Aviation and Military Collectors’ Fair.

It has been another bumper year of art and antiques fairs and markets announcements, news and views. Here is a selection of highlights.

IACF came up with some interesting leads this year and featured stories included Joe Mitchell, an event administrator for IACF who is an embroiderer, working for international costume designers.

Dealer Vincent Page, the new owner of Antiques on High in Oxford, which was saved from closure earlier this year thanks to a tweet from ATG news reporter Laura Chesters regarding its sale, has been busy since his purchase in August.

In Europe we covered antiques markets in France and Italy plus those across the pond in the US. In December this column ran a profile on Frenchman Nicolas Martin, founder of an influential global fleamarkets website. In August I visited and wrote about the buzzing Foire de Chatou outside Paris.

Monmouth dealer John Read Smith is a multi-exhibitor at fairs, his sole dealing source, standing at around 60 venues a year together with Jools, his springer spaniel.

Two dealers in more unusual material also featured in the column. Bill Neal’s specialist subject is antique Chinese mother-of-pearl gaming counters, in which he deals online and at Adams Antique Fairs events. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of this arcane and fascinating subject.

Young dealers made a welcome appearance this year including 16-year-old Tom Hurst, the youngest member of Antiques Young Guns.

A child’s plate that celebrates a performing elephant which was bizarrely accused of murdering her keeper will be an unusual highlight at Towy Events’ last antiques and fleamarket of the year.

Tom Smith (1823-69) was the man who made Christmas go with a bang. His entrepreneurial invention of the Christmas cracker delighted Victorian families with the sheer variety of the crackers’ contents as well as the decorative boxes they came in.