Dealers

THE antiques trade in Portobello Road has suffered another blow, with the demise of The Good Fairy market now confirmed. Added to what has gone before, it calls into question Kensington and Chelsea Council’s entire vision for the borough as set out in its Core Strategy, currently being reviewed by the Planning Inspectorate, which talks time and again about how Portobello should be protected as a Special District Centre.

TRADERS and campaigners at Portobello Road are urging fellow dealers and members of the public to attend the planning meeting regarding the redevelopment of The Good Fairy Market taking place at Kensington & Chelsea Town Hall on Tuesday, July 6.

DEALERS at another antiques arcade in Portobello Road are having to vacate the centre after being given notice to quit.

CERAMICS dealer Jonathan Horne, former Chairman of the BADA and Past Master of the Guild of Arts Scholars, Dealers and Collectors, was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to English ceramics.

GREAT Grooms owner James Podger has issued an alert to the Hungerford antiques trade after his premises were ‘cased’ by potential burglars.

AFTER being closed since early March, The Good Fairy Market in Portobello Road reopened on May 8, to the surprise of some dealers at the Saturday market.

LAST week's letter from the deputy leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council, Councillor Daniel Moylan, (click here to read letter) replying to my commentary on the Portobello planning dispute in ATG No 1937, took me to task for swallowing 'uncritically the claims being made about the council' with regards to Portobello Road, 'almost as if he is unaware that there are elections on and that Portobello lies at the heart of a ward being bitterly contested by Labour and the Lib Dems'.

THIS letter from the Deputy Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council Daniel Moylan appeared in ATG issue no. 1939, May 8.

LONDON dealers Wartski are holding a loan exhibition at their Grafton Street Gallery from May 11-21 titled The King's Blood: Relics of King Charles I.

THE Greek courts have agreed not to pursue dealer Malcolm Hay any further pending his appeal against his conviction for trading in stolen antiquities.

NEW York art gallery Berry-Hill have had a number of artworks seized after a judge ruled it had defaulted on a $9.5m loan.

SINCE the last ATG conference in May 2009, the vision that Nigel Worboys outlined is now a reality, with many businesses following his lead.

SPEAKING to ATG at the end of last week, London Old Master dealer Johnny Van Haeften still had not actually seen the monumental painting by Frans Francken II (1581-1642) for which he paid 6.1m euros (£5.65m) at Dorotheum’s Old Master sale in Vienna on April 21.

It was in October 2007 that I was personally able to break the news to Costas Kleanthous that Kensington and Chelsea Council had decided to effectively create an enclave in Portobello for small shops which could act as a blueprint for other shopping and tourist destinations across Britain.

THE people of Portobello cheered at Kensington and Chelsea town hall as their local councillor demanded an investigation into “what could prove an absolute scandal” concerning the development site that now houses the local All Saints store.

A MANUSCRIPTS dealer from Cheltenham has uncovered a major theft of letters from an American university. The case is now being investigated by the FBI.

DISGRACED New York dealer Lawrence Salander, erstwhile co-owner of Manhattan’s Salander-O’Reilly Gallery, has admitted to orchestrating a $120m art fraud.

THE Portobello Road antiques trade have suffered another blow after the shutters finally came down on a long-established Saturday market. The early morning Good Fairy Market closed in the first week of March with no indication given that it will reopen as an antiques market.

THE public protest over the replacement of antiques shops in Portobello by fashion stores and other chains is gathering pace.

ACTION Comics ushered in the age of superheroes when its first issue hit the news stands in June 1938. On its cover was a curious character dressed in skintight blue and red lifting a green Chevrolet above his head, and the course of American pop culture was changed forever.