Fairs and Markets

JUNE in London means the big fairs, an increasing number of dealers’ selling shows and, this year, such trade initiatives as Art Fortnight and London Sculpture Week. It is the month when all eyes are turned on the capital’s art and antiques trade and dealers, collectors and museum curators fly in from all over the world.

RUNNING until next Monday May 31 is the first Art Deco Fair to be held by Woburn Abbey Antiques Centre at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire.

AS if there are not enough fairs in June in London, busy Sussex organiser Caroline Penman has decided to launch another, but at least this is far from the centre of town and does not tread on the toes of any of the established events.

NOW in its sixth year artLONDON has proved a popular and worthy addition to the roster of June fairs. Indeed, in this relatively short time it has become as much a part of the London summer scene as its much more venerable and mainstream stablemates, such as Grosvenor House and Olympia.

AT its seventh staging, the popular Hali fair at Olympia is undergoing some major changes, not the least of which is a name change. The event is now titled The Hali Fair: Carpets, Textiles and Tribal Art. The duration of the fair has been extended from four to 10 days and it will take place in the National Hall Gallery at Olympia from June 3 to 13, at the same time as the summer Fine Art & Antiques Fair. The fairs will be linked allowing easy access between the two.

ON The Wall is the name of a new fair aimed at the contemporary art market which will be launched from September 29 to October 3 at the Grand Hall, Olympia.

AFTER a five-year gap, Essex organiser Robert Bailey returns to Seaford College for his 30th Petworth Antiques, Fine Art and Investment Fair. He had many successful years at the college near Petworth in West Sussex, then he took a break due to some difficulties over the venue. Now he is back in the college’s Robertson Centre.

FROM April 20 to May 3, West Country organiser Louise Walker staged her 30th anniversary Harrogate Antique & Fine Art Fair and not only did it cement its reputation as one of the very top provincial fairs, it also gave most of the 70-odd exhibitors something to celebrate.

FOLLOWING the supremely successful launch of her West Country Antiques Fair at Powderham Castle, near Exeter, earlier this year, Sue Ede of Cooper Antiques Fairs might have been tempting fate with another launch so soon after. Certainly her first Oxford County Antiques Fair, at beautiful Eynsham Hall, near Woodstock from May 7 to 9, was not an event to remember.

YORKSHIRE organisers Galloway Antiques Fairs make one of their many trips to Scotland this weekend for the Blair Castle Antiques Fair at Blair Atholl, Pitlochry, Perthshire.

AFTER 25 years mounting monthly fairs at Chelsea Town Hall in the King’s Road, London SW3, Hove-based Cindy Mainwaring, of Mainwaring Antiques Fairs, is introducing a new dimension.

ATTENDANCE figures of 4243 at The 9th Annual Chelsea Art Fair, a Caroline Penman event at Chelsea Old Town Hall, were slightly up on last year, as were items sold (435), with many of the 45 exhibitors reporting reasonable sales.

THE Earls Court and Olympia exhibition complexes are now under new ownership following a £245m deal which was completed last week.

THE gang targeting antiques centres in the south-midlands appear to have struck again, this time walking away with £4000 worth of carriage clocks.

A SELECT group of 22 dealers from seven countries, including a number of Maastricht veterans, will take part in Russia’s first ever international antiques fair, the Moscow World Fine Art Fair, from May 31-June 7.

THIS Sunday May 16, the second London Photograph Fair of the year will take place in Bloomsbury at the Bonnington Hotel in Southampton Row.

THIS Sunday May 16 will see, for the third time, Vintage Mayfair Frozen in Fashion being held in the Music Room of Grays Antique Market at 26 South Molton Lane, London W1, just two minutes from Bond Street tube station.

THE jewellery dealer targeted by a gang at Sandown Park Fair on April 27 has told the Antiques Trade Gazette it was the second attack on him in as little as two weeks.

A SUBSTANTIAL reward is being offered after thieves smashed a dealer’s car window and made off with a large amount of jewellery at Sandown Park Fair on April 27.

FOR some years now the country’s top glass fixture, the next bi-annual National Glass Collectors Fair will be held at the Heritage Motor Centre, near Gaydon in Warwickshire this Sunday, May 9.