28 19th June 2010 dealers’ diary
David Moss email: davidmoss@
antiquestradegazette.com tel: 020 7420 6624
The preview from here
AN often-overlooked aspect of fairs are the previews.
Last week I attended a charity
preview and dinner at the new Haughtons’ event Art Antiques London. In its elegant Hyde Park marquee opposite the Royal Albert Hall, it looked a treat. The night could not have been better. But a number of exhibitors were unhappy that they did not have early enough warning of the private view that afternoon. Some at the preview sold well,
but there might have been more sales if more exhibitors had time to invite their regular clients and other potential buyers. Perhaps this is a small gripe, but with the mushrooming of smarter fairs, all with press views, private views, charity private views, corporate private views and the rest, organisers must make it clear when these are on and when the event opens to the public. Advertisements almost invariably print dates the fair is open to the public. But no organiser wants serious buyers to feel miffed that they did not know the fair was open to some the day, and at some overseas fairs two days before.
FRESH from her early June fair in West London, Caroline Penman returns to the provinces to launch her Towcester Antiques & Fine Art Fair at the Conference Centre, Towcester Racecourse, Northamptonshire from June 25 to 27.
At this first airing of what is intended to be an annual event, about 30 exhibitors will occupy two floors of the newly-built Empress Stand. Many will be familiar to Penman fairs visitors, so do not expect too many surprises. Instead, count upon a traditional event of some quality, with no datelines but serious vetting. There are plenty of specialists on call.
From the Penman roster come furniture dealers Melody’s Antiques of Chester and Timms from Bedfordshire. Oriental pieces are offered by Ben Cooper of Herefordshire, sculpture from Garret & Hurst of Sussex and Continental porcelain from East Yorkshire’s John Newton.
Admission is £4. Caroline has a good track record at racecourse fairs. Chester has long been one of her strongest fixtures and she has high hopes of Towcester with its proximity to several largish towns including Banbury, Buckingham and Aylesbury. The organiser thinks the market for traditional, middle-range antiques is keener in the provinces than in the capital and to an extent this was borne out by her new summer West London Art & Antiques Fair at Kensington Town Hall from June 3 to 6. More than 50 exhibitors, many of them
refugees from Olympia who were scared off by the new Olympian stand rents, were on parade. With the Penman costs a fraction of the other London fixtures, they had little to lose if the crowds stayed away and business failed to boom. Which was just as well.
The first day coincided with Olympia’s opening day. Some people visiting it did
Why Penman is betting on Towcester
make the effort to go up the road to the rather unprepossessing town hall complex off Kensington High Street. But, while there was a respectable attendance early on the first day, it petered out by the late afternoon and seemed pretty thin on subsequent days. The organisers tell me that some 3500 came through the doors over the four days.
Business was not brisk, but some of the exhibitors made sales, with Petworth textiles specialist Rhona Valentine positively enthusiastic. “My regular London clients found me and bought well,” she said. “Caroline did an amazing job of promoting the fair, I
cannot fault her and her organisation.” Few would find fault with Caroline
Penman’s organising abilities, but it was a very tall order to create any buoyancy at a worthy, but workaday, fair in unglamorous surroundings in the same month and the same city as such superglam launches as Masterpiece. However, period furniture dealers Anthemion from Cumbria, until this summer staunch Olympians, did sell a Georgian table for a “significant sum”. Caroline will wait to see how the other fairs perform before she makes a final decision whether to stage this fair again next June.
Top centre builds on strong Left:
currently in stock at the Manhattan Art & Antiques Center, Flying Cranes are asking around $45,000 for this 16in (41cm) Meiji period Satsuma vase.
HAPPY 35th anniversary to the Manhattan Art & Antiques Center. New York’s original, largest (it hosts 100 galleries and is the length of a city block), and still best such centre, has survived a number of bad spells to do well. At 1050 Second Avenue at 56th Street, it endures partly because it was conceived in the neighbourhood community and still plays a potent role there.
When Glenwood Management Corporation planned a luxury high-rise complex on the site in 1975 there was debate as how best to use street-level space. The result was what was then, for the US, a novel vision of a shopping mall devoted to art and antiques which would be home to the many small antiques
25 - 27 June
Empress Grandstand Towcester Racecourse
A5 Watling Street, Northants NN12 6LB
Set in elegant parkland on 2 floors of a 5 year-old Grandstand built in Hispano-Deco style! Friday & Saturday 10.30 - 6, Sunday 10.30 - 5. Exhibitors include:
Adm: £4. (ATG readers free)
Books Illustrated, Ben Cooper, Garret & Hurst, Peter Jackson, Tim Kendrew & I Goss-Taylor, Mike Melody, John Newton, Elizabeth Nicholson, Olde Time, Pars Rugs, Plaza, Ryland Fine Art, Shapiro, Saunders Fine Art, Simply, Corrinne Soffe, S & S Timms, Trivette, Joscelyn Vereker With room for 3 more (as at 9 June)
www.penman-fairs.co.uk T: 01825 744074
THE JOE POWELL COLLECTION
TO BE SOLD ON SITE AT ASHTON KEYNES, SWINDON on Friday 25th June at 10am
A fascinating collection dating from 1925 when Joe Powell’s father set up in business, including two Garrett tractors and spares, Marshall and Brown & May portable engines, Series 1 Land Rover, Lister auto truck with crane, two Lister 4JP generator plants, Lister single cylinder C.S. engine on trolley, farm sundries and lawnmowers, lathes, milling machines, drills, tooling, miscellaneous. Machine shop and engineering items, general memorabilia and catalogues, advertising signs and model railway engines, etc. (approx. 850 lots)
Viewing:Thursday 24th June 10am-8pm Catalogues £2.50 including postage
5% buyer’s premium + VAT • Caterer in attendance
Tel: 01989 768320 Fax: 01989 768345 email:
nigel@morrisbricknell.com www.morrisbricknell.com In conjunction with Alan Keef Ltd.
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