Art and antiques news from 2003

A FEW of the highlights of the June 10 sale held by Comic Book Postal Auctions are illustrated in the accompanying caption stories – along with one of the two Dandy annuals sold a couple of weeks later in Swindon – and as ever, Malcolm Phillips has provided me with some informed observations on prices, market movements and much else besides.

THIS weekend from July 11 to 13 Essex organiser Robert Bailey returns to his top provincial venue, Tatton Park, near Knutsford for the 34th Cheshire Summer Antiques and Fine Art Fair.

Burleigh: The Story of a Pottery by Julie McKeown, published by Richard Dennis Publications. ISBN 0903685809. £45hb

DOUBTS over the second New York Fall Fair have been fuelled by a delay in publishing the list of exhibitors. In early June when he announced that the opening night preview party for the October 14 to 20 event at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York would benefit Manhattan’s Frick Collection, organiser Lorenzo Rudolf, vice-president of Florida-based International Fine Arts Expositions, promised a roster of 100 international dealers to be announced on July 1.

FROM August 21 to October 26, The Wallace Collection in Manchester Square will host what they bill as the first ever exhibition in London devoted entirely to Regency and Victorian glass.

FRANCE: July and August are periods of considerable saleroom activity for the coastal regions of France. The calendar here lists over 80 different sales scheduled for the next few weeks around the Channel, Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts but a much more detailed survey of these regions and forthcoming events is available in a special six-page section of this week’s Antiques Trade Gazette. If you wish to obtain a free copy call ++ 44 (0)207 6600.

Bowrings, India’s only specialist fine art auction house, is to close after just two years of business to allow for lengthy court proceedings against the Indian government. The auctioneers have filed a writ against the Indian Ministry of Culture’s regulatory body ASI (Archeological Survey of India) and the CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) disputing the demand that they need a licence to operate and sell antiquities.

LAST-minute efforts to persuade the Government to amend legislation that could prove damaging to the honest trade in antiques looked set to pay off as the Antiques Trade Gazette went to press.

LOOKING for the next big thing in art? You can choose from over 350 hand-picked artists, in a variety of media, whose wares are on show this month at Fresh Art, at the Business Design Centre in Islington, London N1.

LAPADA chief executive John Newgas has revealed that a membership survey shows now is the time to review the association’s fairs programme. Mr Newgas had already set out changes in May after LAPADA and fair organisers Centrex failed to reach agreement on the future of the association’s January fair, spelling an end to the event at the NEC in Birmingham.

Originally belonging to the Dean family of Fareham House, Hampshire, this pair of Sheraton period mahogany folding card tables, right, was offered at the Cotswold Auction Company (15% buyer’s premium) on June 10.

TUCKED away through an archway next to wine merchants Berry Bros & Rudd in St James’s Street is Pickering Place, home of Nevil Keating Tollemache – formerly Nevill Keating. Pictures until director Angela Nevill formed a new company with Michael Tollemache, a past chairman of the Society of London Art Dealers and a specialist in Old Master and 19th century paintings.

JUDGING by the sales of photographic images at the recent artLONDON, the public appears to be warming to the genre as a serious art form. A further test of its acceptability may be gleaned until July 26 at Cork Street’s Hirschl Contemporary Art, with the showing of 10 or so photographs (£1000-1800) by Sian Bonnell, whose work is represented in the V&A and Houston’s Museum of Fine Art.

ONCE again Fran Foster of Centrex, the Birmingham NEC’s organising arm, has proved there is plenty of fair business in Scotland if the quality and mix of stock is right. Her fourth Antiques For Everyone – Glasgow, held at the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre from June 20 to 22, proved a success for the great majority of the 80 or so exhibitors and it was commented upon that this Scottish fair has outshone many events further south.

For many years now Stanway House, an outstanding Jaco-bean manor house at Winchcome, half way between Tewkesbury and Stow on the Wold in the heart of the Cotswolds countryside, has been the glorious setting for Cooper Antiques Fairs’ North Cotswolds Antiques Fair.

Netherhampton House, a wonderful Queen Anne home in Salisbury, was the venue for Duke’s English Country House sale on 16 June. Rented from the Pembroke estate since 1990 by dealer and collector John Parnaby, the elegant stone property operated as both a home and a showroom for Mr Parnaby’s business, Victor Mahy Antiques, specialists in 17th and 18th century furniture and works of art.

ERIC Knowles crowned his fourth year as the chairman of the British Antiques and Collectables Awards with another grand dinner and ceremony at the Dorchester in London hosted by Miller’s. The event, which took place on Tuesday last week, paid tribute to excellence across the country among dealers and auctioneers.

John Hassell (1868-1948) produced designs for some 600 to 700 posters – including one for the British Vacuum Cleaner Company depicting a lecherous bit of machinery chasing a nubile parlour-maid – but by far his best known work is Skegness Is So Bracing.

Even as the million-pound Impressionist and Modern pictures were being knocked down in their King Street saleroom last week, Christie’s were reconfirming their commitment to the currently troubled middle market sector.

There has been considerable reportage on the subject of commemorative medals at auction recently, and the considerable museum participation in auction sales. So spare a thought for the dealer who issues fixed-price lists. Two fine English fixed-price catalogues have recently thudded through my letterbox.