Dealers

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.

A DEALER who says his career has been ruined by trumped-up charges in the Greek courts has been arrested again – even though he is currently appealing against the conviction and three-year jail sentence.

WHEN the ‘To Let’ signs in the windows at the former Partridge Fine Art gallery on Bond Street were removed earlier this month, and ‘Let’ signs took their place, rumours abounded as to who the new tenants might be.

SEVERAL dealers at Sunbury Antiques Market at Kempton Park on Tuesday, January 26, were duped by a woman using a stolen chequebook.

A GROUP of Portobello Road dealers are to lobby the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea following the loss of a prominent antiques arcade to a highstreet retailer.

THE work of Edward Seago (1910-1974) has always been popular. Even during his own lifetime, Colnaghi’s annual exhibitions of his paintings between 1946 and 1966 on Old Bond Street drew such fierce competition that buyers, some of whom had queued overnight, were restricted to one picture each.

ANOTHER major dealership on the London antiques scene is to close with the announcement of the auction of the entire trading stock of Sampson and Horne Antiques at Bonhams on April 28.

MARK Law, former chairman of Partridge, has joined former directors David Mellor and Christopher Jemmett in their bid to remove their guarantor status relating to the purchase of the firm.

MARK Law, the former chairman of Partridge Fine Art, has issued a statement confirming his intent to sue the previous owners of the Bond Street dealership for the money he has laid out for the purchase of the firm since 2005.

THE extraordinary saga over Partridge Fine Art has taken another twist with a legal row over claims of long-term systematic fraud and faking by the Bond Street dealership.

LONDON art dealers Agnew’s, who were founded in 1817, mark the new year with a new chief executive, new gallery and a new direction.

LONDON-based organisers Brian and Anna Haughton are first off the mark in announcing top names who have signed up for one of the numerous events vying for exhibitors in June 2010.

AFTER nearly 50 years as a dealer, Tobias Jellinek makes no apology for having written what he describes as “a practical book” about early English chairs, stools and other seating rather than a furniture history book.

LEADING London art dealer Richard Green is in the process of demolishing his Old Masters gallery at 33 New Bond Street, prior to completely rebuilding a new five-storey gallery.

IT all seemed done and dusted as the galleries were cleared and the landlords put To Let signs in the front window. But now it appears there may be life in the Partridge name yet, as an unnamed consortium announced last week that it had acquired the brand.

THE removal men descended on New Bond Street last week to begin the task of clearing out the stock at Partridge. By the morning of Friday, September 4, the biggest object left in the window was a large roll of bubblewrap being used to pack up the antiques for loading onto several lorries parked along the street.

Mallett have put on hold plans to leave Bond Street. In the wake of a massive rent rise last year, the London dealers announced their intended departure from the luxury goods thoroughfare, but they have been unable to pass on the lease of the building.