News

SOUTHAMPTON Institute is looking forward to a brighter future after the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers and Valuers confirmed approval of the BA (FAV) degree course and launched student membership.

LAPADA have set up an email alert system to warn members about fraudsters after an indepth investigation by the association led to a serial offender being caught and jailed. John Alderson of Seattle was convicted in the USA and has just been sentenced to 41 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He must also pay restitution of $146,000 to victims.

A BIG cut in extraordinary costs for the third quarter of 2003 has boosted Sotheby’s latest results – as a result net losses have fallen by more than a third on the same period last year. The significant reductions in employee retention costs and antitrust-related special charges mean that losses for the quarter this year were down to $27.4m, compared to $43m for the third quarter of 2002.

IN February 2004 Sotheby’s New Bond Street will mark the centenary of Cecil Beaton’s birth with an exhibition of his most celebrated photographs. Beaton at Large, which runs from February 10 to 20, will complement the National Portrait Gallery’s major retrospective, Cecil Beaton: Portraits, which runs from February 5 to May 3.

Samuel Watson (1649-1710) is not perhaps as well-known as his contemporaries East, Knibb, Graham or Tompion but he is one of the blue chip names of late 17th century London clockmaking – good enough to enjoy the patronage of both Charles II and Sir Isaac Newton.

NORTH Yorkshire organisers Galloway Antiques Fairs have events coming thick and fast this month and less than a week after shutting up shop at Dunscombe Park in their home county, they head north for The Scone Palace Antiques Fair, Perth from November 14 to 16. The popular Scottish fixture has been fully booked for some time with 33 exhibitors.

Italian Sales: FOR the first time in 10 years, neither Christie’s nor Sotheby’s held an October sale of German and Austrian art. The German economy is currently in far too fragile a state to support a major sale of Expressionist material in London and theme-minded Contemporary and Modern specialists concentrated their attention instead on October’s annual round of 20th Century Italian Art sales.