Exhibitions

IT is not often that an antiques dealer ends up on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery, but until September 19 that is just what is happening.

FOLLOWING last year’s inaugural, successful summer show of graduate student’s work, The Metal Gallery at 90 Mount Street, London W1 have declared this an annual event and this year’s selling exhibition, The Graduate 2004, will run from July 21 to September 11.

THE considerable coverage given to Asia Week in London, on these pages and in the national press, rather neglected one gallery which was bringing the art of the Orient to London long before the Asia week promotion was thought of.

THE work of the pioneering Victorian designer Christopher Dresser is soon to have a major public airing in an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum opening this September. In the meantime the rarest examples of his iconic designs continue to command high prices in the marketplace.

EDINBURGH dealer Andrew Fletcher, who as Twentieth Century Antiques specialises in original works from 1920-1970, normally trades via his website or by appointment, but for the duration of the Edinburgh Festival he is taking space at Concrete Butterfly, a large complex at 317-319 Cowgate in the Old Town which retails furniture and interior design.

Silver made in London has borne the distinctive leopard symbol hallmark since 1300 AD, making it one of the earliest forms of consumer protection.

IN one of the most crowded week’s in London’s arts and antiques calendar, the Grosvenor House and Olympia fairs are still in full swing. Some may ask if we need more in the way of dealers’ selling exhibitions but they would get a dusty reply from the trade.

GAZETTE journalist Scott Reyburn will find himself the subject of scrutiny rather than being the scrutineer for a change thanks to his contribution to So This Is London, an exhibition that forms part of Art Fortnight London.

WOW! The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is really different this year. Well, the colour scheme is, anyway.

BRUSSELS have two similar events this month, both of which are festivals rather than fairs, with specialist dealers mounting concurrent selling exhibitions, promoted jointly, and also inviting overseas specialists in the same discipline to show as guests in the Brussels galleries.

HERE is some information about one of the unqualified recent successes of the London ceramics scene, Eight Days in June, a concurrent series of exhibitions held by four leading Kensington dealers from June 7 to 15.

EAST Anglian early furniture specialist Andrew Singleton has, for many years, held a popular pre-Christmas selling exhibition at his shop, Suffolk House Antiques, in Yoxford High Street, and following the consistent success of these shows he is staging a summer version, opening on June 12 and running for a week.

CAMBRIDGESHIRE dealers Simon and Penny Rumble generally deal with the trade and by appointment only from Causeway End Farmhouse, Chittering, but they have just converted a barn into a new showroom and celebrate from June 17 to 20 with a selling exhibition to which everyone is welcome.

MAYFAIR antiquities dealer Rupert Wace is mounting possibly the most captivating June selling exhibition when, as one of the participants of the first London Sculpture Week, he presents Pharaoh’s Creatures: Animals from Ancient Egypt, at 14 Old Bond Street, London W1.

I CAN almost hear the grinding as dozens of art critics hone their sabres – it must be time for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition!

INEVITABLY fairs dominate June in London but there is also much activity in the galleries and showrooms with dealers taking advantage of the influx of serious collectors and trade into the capital.

MAYFAIR dealers in things tribal, unusual and exotic, the Gordon Reece Gallery, are currently holding one of their periodic selling exhibitions of antique Chinese furniture at 16 Clifford Street, W1.

KENT English furniture dealer Michael Sim holds his fifth Special Summer Exhibition of Scottish & English Barometers throughout the month of June at his showrooms in Royal Parade, Chislehurst.

Islamic works of art have not just been wowing collectors in the auction rooms, the museum- and exhibition-going public have also plainly found it a big and topical attraction.

PIMLICO dealer Appley Hoare unveils her new stock of antique garden items and associated antiques at her eponymous shop at 30 Pimlico Road, London SW1 on the evening of May 24; her selling Summer Garden Exhibition will continue at the gallery well into the summer.