52 12th March 2011 dealers’ diary
Florida fancy and the 2012 Olympiad
TWO days ago I returned from Florida where I visited the launch of David Lester’s latest venture, the Naples International Art & Antique Fair. I must confess I was unaware of the
Floridian Naples until David announced this fair last year, but the city resort on the state’s West Coast is a delightful and scenic location which has more charm (and less bling) than Palm Beach, where the organiser launched his first Florida fair 15 years ago. You never know what to expect with
David Lester and when I heard his new venue, the Naples International Pavilion, was a long-empty supermarket he recently acquired, I wondered what to expect. Well, he has done a sterling job on the
building and at the vernissage everything looked a treat, and there was optimism in the air. But more on that fair, which has just
closed, and Lester’s Palm Beach fair in the coming weeks. You never leave David Lester without
something to report. And as a taster I can tell you that he revealed to me that while he is, as promised, taking a back seat at this June’s summer Olympia, he will be back at Olympia with a vengeance the following summer when the fair coincides with the 2012 Olympics. Even David described his idea for
Olympia 2012 as a grand plan, and his vision is no less than a ”cultural Olympiad” with different countries housing their dealers in national pavilions. A sort of cross between the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Olympia fair we know. No details yet, but I will keep you
informed. David reiterated to me that he owns half of June Olympia, but Clarion own the other half and I wonder what they will make of the cultural Olympiad. Another revelation was that his boat,
the megayacht SeaFair, which has been dry-docked, currently at St Petersburg, Florida, almost since its maiden voyage, is not the SS White Elephant as some wags will have it, but will ride the waves, or rather hug the coast, again from March 25 to 28 when it hosts Art Sarasota. It looks like the Sarasota fair is
going to float, so watch this space for developments.
Camilla dedicates herself to the canals
LAST November I pictured Camilla Purdon, then a director of the Cork Street, Mayfair art dealers Messums, running in the Venice Marathon in aid
david moss email:
davidmoss@atgmedia.com tel: 020 7420 6624
Oriental department of Spink in St James’s, an academy which produced a whole generation of eminent dealers, including current TEFAF chairman Ben Janssens. After some time dealing
independently in London, four years ago she moved to New York as director of the Indian and Southeast Asian department at Sotheby’s, where she stayed for two years before returning to dealing. Athough immersed in the
Silver service with a touch of gold
CELEBRITY chef Michel Roux and Simon Phillips, head of the long- established Mayfair dealership Ronald Phillips, have teamed up to present an exclusive dining experience in the most expensively decorated dining room of any eaterie in the land. On the evening of March 30 they host Dining Off Antiques for 20 guests at
the Le Gavroche chef’s newly opened venture, Roux at The Landau, the David Collins designed restaurant at The Langham hotel on Portland Place, W1. For the night everything in the restaurant’s private dining room, from
soup spoons to the tables themselves, will be replaced with their antique equivalents from the 18th and 19th centuries. With just the silver service costing more than £75,000, one can well believe
the estimated overall value of some £3m. Most of the antiques are from the stock of Ronald Phillips, although some
other London dealers contribute items and specialist dealer Andrew Lineham supplies the glass. Everything is for sale. The vintage setting is matched by a vintage four-course menu and vintage
wines chosen by Michel Roux from The Langham’s 19th century archives, and here we see Simon Phillips and M. Roux rehearsing for the big night. The dinner bill, which will aid the London charity The Dispossessed Fund,
comes out at £350 a head and reservations can be made at The Landau on 020 7965 0165.
of the Venice in Peril Fund (the British committee for the preservation of Venice). She raised £11,000 for a charity which
is obviously close to her heart. Indeed, so close that after five happy years with Messums, Camilla has left and joined Venice in Peril’s London office full time. One of her first tasks is to round up
recruits to run for the charity at this year’s Venice Marathon on October 23.
Theresa bestrides ancient and modern
AFTER a career largely devoted to ancient Indian and Himalayan art, English dealer Theresa McCullough, now New York-based, has moved into modern and contemporary Indian art. She has been appointed director at
the Aicon Gallery in Great Jones Street in downtown Manhattan, leading specialists in Indian and Pakistani
Above: from Ancient to Modern, Theresa McCullough’s New York odyssey.
contemporary work. Her first venture is the just-opened major retrospective of Raghu Rai, India’s most renowned photojournalist. Theresa honed her skills in the
contemporary, Theresa maintains contact with the ancient and tells me every March she will put together a “pre-modern” selection of sculpture and miniature paintings alongside a current artist to make for a broader contribution to Asia Week. If, like me, you are intrigued at the
description pre-modern, I learn it is the preferred New York parlance for old in this field, for fear of words like antiquities pricking Americans’ delicate sensibilities with visions of looting and the like. Poor lambs.
Now it’s L-App-ADA
DISPLAYING their 21st century business credentials, LAPADA have launched the LAPADA and LAPADA Modern App, enabling users of iPhone 4 anywhere on the planet to search and locate LAPADA members within a two-, 20- or 100-mile radius. The association says the primary
purpose is to provide a practical, flexible and responsive way for the public (or trade, I assume) to locate dealers whilst out and about. So now, wherever you are, when you get that LAPADA moment you know what to do.
A suitable candidate for inclusion
EARLIER this year I wondered why Californian organisers Caskey Lees’ venerable Arts of Pacific Asia fair was not officially invited to be a member of Asia Week New York. After all, since the demise of the
Haughtons’ Asian fair it is now the hub of Manhattan’s Asian festivities. Most unsatisfactorily, I was told it
was because it is so difficult to vet every exhibitor at a fair. What nonsense, but as I said when I
printed that response, I doubt if Caskey Lees should care too much, they are already successful enough. So I was slightly surprised, if gratified,
when last week I learned the fair, which runs from March 23 to 27, has been signed up as a regular participant in the annual Spring Asiafest. Common sense prevailed.
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