Antiques Trade Gazette 29


david moss email: davidmoss@atgmedia.com tel: 020 7420 6624


dealers’ diary


CADA-iac revival thanks to John


POPULAR Oxfordshire English pottery dealer John Howard seems to be turning things around since being elected chairman of the then-ailing Cotswolds Antique Dealers Association last October. Launched in 1978, the once-vibrant CADA had conspicuously lost direction and John was elected with some two- thirds of the ballot to put some spirit back into the declining membership, which at its height two decades ago rose above 40. His new CADA committee, which includes two ex-chairmen, were up to the challenge and have just accepted four new members (with the sole exception of Trinity House from Broadway (the first recruits for four years). These are Andrew Dando and Moxhams Antiques, both from Bradford on Avon; Angela and Christopher Legge, the Oxford rug dealers and Sarah Colegrave from Bloxham. This brings the tally up to 28 with more in the pipeline. The committee is busy revising publicity and advertising policies with a number of innovations imminent. Among these is an online exhibition linked to the Royal Wedding, offering members’ stock with a Royal connection.


An artist’s life begins at 95


JUST to show that it is never too late for a career boost, the influential Lisson Gallery in Marylebone, NW1 has just signed up Cuban-born artist Carmen Herrera. She is now 95 and finally


Makepeace gets his due at last


Above: master furniture maker John Makepeace is set for a tribute exhibition at The Millinery Works in Islington.


internationally recognised as a pioneer of Latin American Modernism. Although Carmen has been painting for six decades in Havana, Paris and New York, where she settled in 1954, it was only at the age of 89 that she sold her first painting. Now she will sell a lot more. Although represented in many museums, including MOMA and Tate Modern, the artist has held only a handful of commercial gallery shows, the latest being one I reported at the Lisson Gallery at the end of last year. It obviously fared well enough to persuade the Lisson to represent Carmen who joins the likes of Anish Kapoor and Julian Opie in an exclusive stable.


Dream piece from the harem


NOTED Kensington Church Street, W8 period furniture dealers Butchoff Antiques have already selected one of the star pieces to grace their stand at Masterpiece in the Royal Hospital grounds, Chelsea from June 30 to July 5. Remembering that Masterpiece insists on the very best of the best, Ian Butchoff followed his brief and is taking an exceptional personalised dressing table made in 1930 for the wealthiest man in the world, the Nizam of Hyderbad. Osman Ali, the Nizam, had seven wives and 42 concubines, and for them only the very best


was good enough. In 1930 he ordered for the harem, from the Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Company of London, a remarkable dressing table complete with a suite of silver, cut-glass containers and other luxury accoutrements. And befitting a man who in 1937 had a fortune estimated at $2bn, ranking him as the world’s richest man, the dressing table also boasts a safe. But Ian did not come across the piece in exotic surroundings. He bought it last September just above estimate at $27,500 from the Austin Auction Gallery in Texas.


IT was only last month I was commenting that the John Makepeace retrospective currently at London’s Somerset House is long overdue. In his 50-year career, the 71-year- old craftsman/designer, pictured here, became the biggest name and biggest influence in contemporary British furniture design, inspiring an increasing number of young artisans. Naturally, the Arts Council retrospective is a tribute not a commercial show, but it is fitting that Makepeace should at the same time be represented in his natural milieu, a selling exhibition. 21st Century Furniture III – The Arts & Crafts Legacy runs at The Millinery Works, Islington, N1 from March 22 to May 1, and alongside the master some 40 younger designers are featured. Their output is markedly more affordable than that of their mentor, whose commissions now command some of the highest prices in the field, although there is a protoype yew chair here at £15,000. I am pleased to see respected period furniture expert Christopher Claxton Stevens, who as a director of Norman Adams in Knightsbridge enthusiastically staged contemporary furniture shows, is involved in the exhibition.


Musical chairs at Core One


LONDON dealer in the eclectic and decorative, Daniel Mankowitz has been developing his style and look for over 30 years, for much of the 1990s in a shop at Notting Hill and more recently at the Blanchard Collective in Wiltshire. Increasingly, his work is with interior designers, so London beckoned and two weeks ago Daniel moved into an SW6 space beloved of the decorators, Core One, a beguiling complex of distinctive dealers’ shops in an old gasworks complex near the top end of Chelsea’s King’s Road.


Daniel moves into the space vacated by Christopher Edwards who has decamped to the space left when De Parma moved last year to the Fulham Road. Daniel joins some nine other dealers, including Orlando Harris, who originally founded the Blanchard Collective before selling it on a few years ago.


Talking Turk


FOR its 26th edition The London Original Print Fair has drummed up quite a draw in Gavin Turk, who delivers a printmaking lecture, Talking Turk, at the Royal Academy opening day on April 19.


Above: Kensington Church Street dealer Ian Butchoff has already put his prize piece aside for Masterpiece.


Above: a piece of furniture fit for the richest man in the world, this dressing table made for the Nizam of Hyderbad will be Butchoff Antiques’ masterpiece at this summer’s eponymous fair.


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