Fairs and Markets

Sotheby’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) move to Olympia was accompanied by a rethink of auction selling categories. Their general ceramic and glass sales have been split into smaller specialised European ceramics, British ceramics and glass auctions each to be held tri-annually at Olympia.

A new design fair made its debut last month in Paris at the Carrousel du Louvre on September 29. Focusing on pieces, from the 1950s to the present SM’ART (le salon du mobilier et de l’objet design) mixed post-war design classics from Italy, France and Scandinavia with works by contemporary designers.

THE long-awaited – and often controversial – scheme to redevelop Bermondsey Square is due to take a major step forward. Architects Arup Associates, who won the competition to design the new-look site, were due to submit their plans to Southwark Council for approval.

FAIRS organisers in New York plan to approach the city authorities with a view to getting events back on track as soon as possible. But they fear that with the continuing problems facing the city, it will be January at the earliest before suitable space can be found to resume anything close to a normal service.

LONDON: Long-established organiser Caroline Penman launches a new summer fair in London next year when The New Chelsea Antiques Show is held at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea.

Staff briefed on avoiding conflicts of interest. Sotheby's have sent out a memo to leading members of the trade involved with fairs at Olympia to explain how they will support exhibitors.

MORE than 20 of New York’s top dealers who had signed up for the cancelled International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show are holding special selling exhibitions in their shops and galleries from October 18 to 23.

DEALER antipathy and logistical problems have forced Anna and Brian Haughton to postpone their New York International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show after all.

AFTER this year the 20/21 British Art Fair will move from the Royal College of Art in Kensington Gore, London SW7 to the Commonealth Institute, Kensington High Street, W8.

Victoria Borwick, director of all fine art and antiques fairs at Olympia for the past eleven years, will leave the company after the November Fine Art and Antiques Fair. In a move which stunned the Trade, Mrs Borwick was told last week by Andrew Morris, the chief executive of Earls Court and Olympia, that her role as director of the fairs was redundant.

LONDON organisers Brian and Anna Haughton managed to clinch a deal with Sotheby’s late last week which will allow their New York flagship event, The International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show, to go ahead.

New York: Due to immense logistical difficulty, particularly shipping, in the wake of last Tuesday's tragedy in New York, London-based organisers Brian and Anna Haughton have today announced a cancellation of their International Art and Design Fair scheduled for September 29th to October 2nd at New York's 7th Regiment Armory on Park Avenue.

AT the second outing Antiques For Everyone – Glasgow confirmed its status as Scotland’s top fair and certainly enough business was achieved by enough of the 170 exhibitors at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre to indicate a secure future for this new fixture.

TOP German dealer Konrad Bernheimer, who has galleries in Munich and London, is the driving force behind a new international, prestige fair at the Haus der Kunst, Munich scheduled for a 2003 launch.

ANOTHER New York City fair will be inaugurated this autumn when The Connoisseur’s Antiques Fair is launched by veteran New York organiser Sanford Smith at the 69th Regiment Armory, Lexington Avenue and 26th Street, from November 16 to 19.

SOTHEBY’S launch their new saleroom at Olympia in West London on September 18 with the auction of the Ian Grant Collection, removed from 41 Ladbroke Square.

UK: SOTHEBY’S have announced their intention to reorganise their Summers Place, Billingshurst, West Sussex operation to “take advantage of the new Olympia saleroom”. The restructure involves ending all general sales at the end of November and specialising in garden statuary, in which the rooms have established a leading reputation, and modern and vintage sporting guns and rifles.

After 15 years of holding picture sales at Billingshurst, Sotheby’s (20/15/10% buyer’s premium) will, from December this year, be holding all their mid-range art auctions in their new saleroom at Olympia.

NOWADAYS Antiques For Everyone seems to be antiques for everywhere, which proves that a successful formula will travel. At the beginning of July Fran Foster of Birmingham’s Centre Exhibitions, the organiser who pioneered that formula, for the first time took her fair to Manchester; then from August 2 to 5 she was back at her Birmingham base for the summer version of the thrice-yearly Antiques For Everyone at the NEC.

UK: Potential clash with summer Olympia - Date changes at two of next year’s Antiques For Everyone fairs have thrown the early summer fairs schedule of a number of dealers into disarray.