24 30th June 2012 dealers’ dossier


summer olympia continued from page 23


of furniture and an enormous pair of binoculars to a buyer who lives on the river in Chiswick. A keen twitcher perhaps? Olympia achieved a fun, quirky mix


of stock this year and among the more unusual items sold was a jet ejector seat to a private buyer by Hatchwell Antiques; three fossil-wood tables, which incorporated a piece of 250-million-year-old petrified forest from Arizona, which had an asking price of approximately £10,000 each, to a buyer from Dubai (Paul Nash/Fossil Decor); and a selection of Mexican travel posters to a lady who used to live in Mexico and is creating a Mexican room in her London home (Antikbar). After ten years away, Clive Loveless,


a specialist in tribal art, decided to return to the fair this year, selling 22 of the 66 items pieces he took along, many of them to local Londoners he hadn’t met before, alongside some key pieces to an


Left: 1972 bronze horse by Dame Elizabeth Frink sold with a ticket price of £68,000 by Jeroen Markies at Olympia.


Curtain up for Masterpiece


international interior designer. Twentieth century ceramics specialist


Andrew Muir was also pleased, selling around 40 pieces of Clarice Cliff to UK, Australian and US buyers. All in all, while sales were thin for


some, others did considerably better, but remember this is in the context of an ongoing recession and uncertain economic times at home and abroad. The fair seems to be heading in the


right direction and Chris Gallon and his Clarion team certainly tried their hardest to produce the sort of quality but affordable event that the trade wanted. Transforming all that effort and


goodwill into widespread sales remains the challenge. One thing Olympia can count on:


for good or ill, there are few fairs that continue to rouse such strong opinion among the trade.


Chinese artists to make their mark at Saatchi


AS many will know, Michael Goedhuis is a huge proponent of contemporary Chinese ink painting. The London-based dealer trades in Chinese art from all periods, but in recent years he has concentrated on promoting Chinese artists working today, famously building the Estella collection, which was the largest collection of contemporary Chinese art to appear at auction when it sold for over $17.8m at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2008. Now, coinciding with nearby Masterpiece London (where


he will also be exhibiting), Michael Goedhuis has joined forces with the Saatchi Gallery on Duke of York’s Square, London, with a loan exhibition that hopes to introduce today’s Chinese ink painters to a wider audience. Ink: The Art of China runs until July 5 (it opened on June 19), and features works by 40- 50 artists including Gao Xingjian, Xu Lei and Qiu Jie. “Artists trained in, and deeply knowledgeable of classical


painting, are meeting the challenge of creating a pictorial language that is a convincing expression of the world of today and in particular the transformed world of China” said Michael.


ANOTHER week, another fair, and this week it is the turn of Masterpiece London at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. This ritzy fair, now in its third year,


opens with a preview on Wednesday, June 27 and continues until July 4 with around 160 exhibitors in a large marquee, an impressive replica of the Royal Hospital itself with a red brick facade. Trinity House Paintings have


Above: Autumn Aria, 2009 by Yang Yanping, a 3ft x 4ft 8in (91cm x 1.42m) ink colour on rice paper, which features in the exhibition of contemporary Chinese ink painting, curated by dealer Michael Goedhuis, currently on show at the Saatchi Gallery. www.michaelgoedhuis.com


exhibited at Masterpiece since the first event in 2010, and this year they devote their stand to an exhibition of the work of the portrait painters and friends, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) and Paul César Helleu (1859-1927), previously on show at the gallery’s showrooms in Broadway and Mayfair. Pictured above is the star piece in the


Hail and arty – the route to MPW


MASTER Paintings Week (June 29 to July 6) starts this week in London and seen here are the three co-founders, from left to right Johnny van Haeften, Jonathan Green and Konrad Bernheimer, clambering out of one of the new MPW branded black cabs they have comissioned for this year. The cabs will be on hand to ferry


visitors around the various selling exhibitions in Mayfair and St James’s, which (for those of you not Royal-ed out after the Jubilee) includes an exhibition of Royal Portraiture, From the House of Tudor to British Regency, throughout the week at Philip Mould & Co, 29 Dover Street, London, W1S. www.masterpaintingsweek.co.uk


exhibition, Sargent’s 1903 oil on canvas titled Marionettes. Marionettes was painted in the


Philadelphia slums during the artist’s visit to the city in May 1903, and shows a backstage performance of the Sicilian rod puppets, a tradition brought to Philadelphia by the large Italian community. A far cry from the society portraits for which he is best known, this is the only documented picture of a marionette theatre by Sargent. The 2ft 5in x 21in (72 x 53cm) painting


has a ‘high seven-figure’ asking price. Masterpiece London’s Midsummer


Party in aid of the cancer charity CLIC Sargent will be held on Tuesday, July 3 from 7-10pm, not on July 28 as was stated in ATG last week. For further information see


www.clicsargent.org.uk. www.masterpiecefair.com


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