North America

After 45 years, Sotheby’s are to cease holding auctions in Canada to focus instead on private sales and sourcing material for the international market.

The Modern and Contemporary art collection accumulated over a 60-year period by singer Andy Williams will be sold at auction later this year.

Students of American ceramic history have long been taught that the first successful producers of porcelain in North America were Gousse Bonnin (1741-c.1780) and George Anthony Morris (1741/5-73), who ran the short-lived American China Manufactory in Philadelphia between 1769 and 1772.

Stack’s Bowers Galleries of Irvine, California, have set a new global auction record for a coin at a hammer price of $8.525m (£5.61m).

Dolphin Promotions have sold the long-running ‘Miami National Antiques Show & Sale’ to US Antique Shows, a division of consumer and tradeshow producers GLM.

Dallas-based Heritage Auctions say 2012 was their best year to date, with total sales of more than $860m.

Sotheby’s Institute of Art are to partner Claremont Graduate University in Los Angeles to offer a new Master’s degree in Art Business.

A rare Holtzapffel & Company rose engine lathe turned a few heads at Skinner’s recent Science, Technology and Clocks sale to take $190,000 (£124,185) as the top lot of the day.

This elaborately cased Breguet quarter-striking clock mounted with a half quarter striking gold watch has beaten its own record as the highest-priced clock ever sold at auction.

The global art market moves firmly to North America in the New Year – first to New York for the series of events that have grown up around the venerable ‘Winter Antiques Show’ (January 25-February 3) and then to Florida for warmer climes and the ‘Original Miami Beach Show’ (January 31-February 4).

While the UK art and antiques scene almost grinds to a halt over Christmas and January, Miami truly comes alive.

The 20th/21st Century Design sale at Rago Arts of Lambertville, New Jersey on October 26-28 included this exceptional enamel by Alexander Fisher (1864-1936).

Designed for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway, a 1928 poster by Cassandre (1901-68) sold at Swann Auction Galleries of New York for what is believed to be a record for the sought-after poster designer at auction.

A 1928 movie poster of Mickey Mouse, thought to be the earliest surviving poster of the Walt Disney character, has fetched $85,000 (£56,000) at auction in Dallas, Texas.

Ritchies, the Toronto auction house founded in 1967 and declared bankrupt in 2009, are trading again. And in spectacular style.

A recent court case in New York has reinforced the importance of the often overlooked issue of artists’ moral rights.

The Florida organisers International Fine Art Expositions (IFAE) have teamed up with the French dealer association Syndicat National des Antiquaires (SNA), organisers of the Paris Biennale, to launch a Miami fair in 2014.

Spink have announced a series of developments aimed at reinforcing the company’s global standing with a particular emphasis on New York.

The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam has acquired an important collection of letters, photos and documents relating to Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank.

The Contemporary art market rose to a new level last week as both Sotheby’s and Christie’s saw record sales in New York.