Art and antiques news from 2009

THIS autumn, the Crafts Council will stage the fourth Origin: the London Craft Fair at Somerset House on The Strand in London.

JOHAN Ten Hoeve, a professional development diploma student on West Dean College’s clocks programme in West Sussex, has made a replica of a Thomas Tompion clock for the Royal Observatory Greenwich.

THE Safergems initiative, aimed at tackling crime committed against the trade and improving links with UK police forces, has now been launched.

DURRANTS Auction Rooms have issued an alert about a man claiming to be an antiques dealer from Belgium, who has recently bounced a cheque for nearly £3500 at their rooms.

NEWS that the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair had been scrapped sent shockwaves through the trade last week – but that soon gave way to a determination that the event must be revived in some form.

SLEEPER spotter Philip Mould has unveiled his latest discovery – an early Thomas Gainsborough landscape of Ipswich painted in the mid to late 1740s.

THE Exeter-based firm Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood are to take over Bonhams’ saleroom in Honiton in January 2010.

BRINGING out the bidders in Banbury, this Indian Mughal carved ivory khandjar handle sold for £24,000 at Holloways' latest sale.

TO celebrate their 250th anniversary this year, Dreweatts are offering free online bidding for their upcoming sales on July 14-15, at the firm’s flagship premises at Donnington Priory Salerooms.

IRONICALLY, in its 75th and sadly final staging last month, the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair reaffirmed its status as unquestionably the UK's flagship antiques event.

JUST after what was generally agreed to be a very successful 75th anniversary staging, the Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair has been scrapped as no longer economically viable.

THE readjustment taking place at the top end of the contemporary and modern art market was once again in evidence at the latest flagship London auction series.

The latest survey conducted by the Society of London Art Dealers (SLAD) shows a doubling of members who now have a gallery presence abroad, mostly in New York.

WHILE £50m was finally raised in February to keep the Duke of Sutherland's Titian painting Diana and Actaeon in the UK, an attempt to raise a further £50m by 2012 for the Duke's Diana and Callisto is already underway.

THE Art Fund have appointed Dr Stephen Deuchar, currently the director of Tate Britain and chairman of the 2009 Turner Prize, as its new director, with effect from January 4 2010.

ALBERT Richard Smith was obsessed from childhood with the idea that he might one day climb Mont Blanc. There were false starts and setbacks, financial and social, but in 1851 he finally got to stand on the peak of his dreams and spent the next few years building a small fortune on the strength of that achievement.

FLORIDA-based fairs entrepreneur David Lester has set his sights on a pivotal role in the future of the Olympia International Art & Antiques Fair.

Devon County Antiques Fairs are currently experiencing technical difficulties with their telephone system but would like the readers of the ATG to know that the fair at Westpoint Exhibition Centre will be going ahead as planned this weekend (July 4-5).

A DOZEN telephone bidders competed for a remarkable cache of primary provenanced Cotswolds School furniture offered by Duke's in Dorchester on June 18.

WELL-KNOWN silver dealer Nicholas Shaw is to leave the trade to become the new head of department at Bonhams. Following more than two decades working as a dealer, he begins work as an auctioneer in September.