Fairs and Markets

FOLLOWING the well-received introduction of master classes to their events last year, DMG Antiques Fairs, the UK’s biggest organiser of the biggest fairs, will be repeating the initiative at 12 of their summer fixtures. Mike Turner, marketing controller at the fairs, says: “The master classes are designed to appeal to both experienced and amateur collectors which is why we hold them during general entry times.”

ORGANISERS Brian and Anna Haughton have cancelled this summer’s London Asian Art Fair citing trade uncertainties over The Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Act as the reason.

ESSEX organiser Robert Bailey is not a man easily daunted, which was fortunate when a week before his Cheshire Spring Antiques and Fine Art Fair at Tatton Park he was warned of major road closures for visitors using the M6 and the Manchester route M56.

LAST September, businessman and glass enthusiast Nicholas Lyne sold his stake in Berkshire auctioneers Law Fine Art to his partner and co-founder Mark Law and teamed up with Sussex ceramics dealer Brad Dover of Jupiter Antiques to launch the Kensington Ceramics & Glass Fair, the first of which was held at the Kensington Close Hotel on February 26 and 27.

WHEN it comes to trade fairs it’s showtime all the year round in Milan, but antiques have their biggest flowering in the late spring with two major vetted fairs in the city taking place hot on each other’s heels.

ALREADY a good day out for the public, there is increasing trade awareness of the Oxford Brocante, the third of which will be held on Sunday April 18 at the Randolph Hotel in Beaumont Street. With the emphasis very much on decorative works it also offers vintage fashion.

HOT on the heels of the distinctly glitzy and upmarket Palm Beach Classic, a new fair, the Palm Beach Jewelry and Antique Show, moved into the same venue, the new Palm Beach County Convention Center, with a broader-based, much larger fair, and pulled it off.

THESE are heady times for fairgoers, what with Maastricht, major events in New York and the BADA and Olympia in London. But life goes on, and thrives, nearer the all-important grass roots.

A LONG-ESTABLISHED and popular Belgian fixture is Eurantica, a stylish fair which runs from March 19 to 28 in Palais 1 of Brussels Expo, a stone’s throw from that famous Brussels landmark the Atomium.

FINE weather helped the 43rd Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair welcome around 6000 visitors, up 20 per cent up on 2003, to the city’s Württemberg Kunstverein from January 23-25. The fair, staged by the Verband Deutscher Antiquäre (German Antiquarian Bookdealers’ Association) since 1962, is the largest of its kind in Germany – the 96 exhibitors included dealers from Switzerland, Austria, France, Israel and the UK (Bernard Shapero from London).

FLUSHED with the successful launch in early February of her West Country Antiques Fair at Powderham Castle, near Exeter, Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs moves north this weekend to her established Cheshire County Antiques Fair, which will be held at Arley Hall, near Knutsford from March 12 to 14.

The Spring Olympia fair, just concluded, will undergo a makeover next year that includes a new name.

IT is no surprise that for many people, and not just committed aficionados of things Oriental, their favourite fair is The International Asian Art Fair. The event will be staged for the ninth time at The Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York City from March 26 to 31, with a Gala Benefit for the Asia Society on the evening of March 25.

BELIEVE it or not pinball wizards are not a louche product of the bars and cafes of the 1930s, they were active in the louche gaming dens of late 18th century Venice, as this fascinating and exceptionally rare Venetian gaming machine, known as a gioco delle biglie, testifies.

FOR many dealers the surprise success of last year was the launch of the audaciously named fair Antiques and Audacity, which was held from May 16 to 18 in the grounds of Arundel Castle.

ALWAYS a steady fair, Caroline Penman’s Chester Antiques and Fine Art Show at the County Grandstand, Chester Racecourse from February 12 to 15, once again proved just that, ticking over nicely for most of the 60 exhibitors but with no surprises.

FOUNDED eight years ago as the Palm Beach International Art and Antiques Fair, and presented this year in a new location with a new name, Palm Beach Classic, this pioneering Florida fair has just cemented itself as one of the world’s top five international fixtures.

MARCH is bursting with smart, large and prestigious fairs. But, while neither massive nor flashy, the favourite of many in the trade is the Bath Decorative and Antiques Fair, the 15th of which will be staged in the Pavilion, North Parade, Bath from March 3 to 6.

ALTHOUGH it is now in its 11th year, the Spring Fine Art and Antiques Fair, which will be held at Olympia in West London from March 2 to 7, is the most recent of the three annual Olympias. To many eyes it is the most stylish and best looking of the three – to others it is the most problematical. It is certainly different.

A compromise deal has been agreed between rival Paris fair organisers the Syndicat National des Antiquaires – the national dealers’ association, which stages the Biennale and the Salon du Collectioneur at the Carrousel du Louvre – and SOC (Société d’Organisation Culturelle), the commercial company (owned by Paris dealers Patrick Perrin and Stéphane Custot) which stages the twice-yearly Pavillon des Antiquaires et des Beaux Arts in the adjacent Tuileries Gardens.