North America

TAKE a beautiful sitter, a leading portraitist, add a touch of glamour and offer with an appetising estimate. Such is the recipe for a riotous bidding feast.

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.

MORE transparency and regulation at New York auctions is promised if a bill recently introduced in the state legislature is passed.

FOLLOWING the severe winter weather that has struck the East Coast of the US, Freemans of Philadelphia chose to postpone for a week the sale of the Lehman Brothers Collection Part II.

John Ward, head of Sotheby’s New York silver department, said it was the piece of American silver that had it all: “Large size, great condition, beautiful design by an idiosyncratic maker, fresh provenance, and a great story.”

MAJOR American museums played an active role as both buyers and sellers in the latest Old Master sales in New York.

SCIENTISTS in the United States have unveiled a ground-breaking piece of technology to identify fake pictures.

AN agreement over the disputed Blue Period Picasso painting The Absinthe Drinker may well lead to a clearer legal definition of what constitutes art sold under Nazi duress.

THE recession continues to take a heavy toll on the New York fairs scene and the first casualty of the new year looks set to be the Haughtons' International Fine Art Fair.

A COPY of A Christmas Carol has now knocked Oliver Twist off the top of the tree to become the most expensive Dickens title ever sold at auction.

The trustee appointed to oversee the collapse of Toronto-based Ritchies Auctioneers has presented a damning portrait of the company’s operations.

THE latest series of contemporary art auctions in New York provided some further evidence of confidence returning at the top end of the market.

HAS the top end of the art market bounced back? This was the opinion ventured by some commentators after the flagship sales of Impressionist and Modern art in New York last week.

THE troubled Toronto-based auctioneers Ritchies have finally closed after they were declared bankrupt by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

THE dealer/collector who bought what is now widely thought to be a previously unrecognised work by Leonardo Da Vinci has given ATG details of the events leading up to the revelation.

A NEW antiques fair in Atlantic City is to be launched in March. It replaces the long-running Atlantique City Antiques Show – a once leading US fair that was axed by organisers F&W Publications in September.

THIS rare c.1912 Märklin fire engine toy topped the sale of the second part of the Donald Kaufman toy collection at specialist saleroom Bertoia Auctions in Vineland, New Jersey, on September 25-26.

A long-running complaint brought against the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts by the owner of a work twice denied by their authentication board has been granted class action status.

WELL-known Americana dealer Leigh Keno has established a “full-service” auction business in Manhattan.

It was, wrote Chicago Now, website of the Chicago Tribune, 'The greatest flea market find'.