Events and conferences

In commercial terms ecclesiastical silver is not the strongest area of the market but there is no doubting its social and historical interest, especially when it has retained its links to the church for which it was made.

NINE prominent London specialist dealers have joined forces to launch London Sculpture Week this June. In recent years a number of such initiatives have been launched successfully to focus attention on an area of expertise in the capital. With increasing interest in sculpture it was thought it was time to highlight London’s considerable credentials in this field.

THIS year is the centenary of the foundation of the Georg Jensen silversmith workshop in Copenhagen, and to mark the anniversary the international Jensen specialists The Silver Fund hold an exhibition devoted to the work of one of the most renowned designers of the Jensen firm, Henning Koppel (1918-1981).

FAR from the traditional image of the stuffy bookseller, Mayfair-based Biblion, who deal in antiquarian books and first editions out of Davies Mews, W1, are celebrating St. Valentine’s Day with what can best be described as a sonnet-o-gram.

FRANCE: THE centenary of the Wiener Werkstätte, founded by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser in 1903, was commemorated in Vienna with various museum and gallery exhibitions, and two specialist auctions at the city’s main auction houses – the Dorotheum and Wiener Kunst.

FOR their third biennial exhibition, Blumka Gallery of New York and Kunsthandlung Julius Böhler of Munich join forces for a truly stunning collection of recent acquisitions at Blumka’s premises at 209 East 72nd Street.

CAN a mere movie affect the antiques market? The answer would appear to be yes, at least in New York where, since the release of The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, interest in the ancient Japanese weapons of the Samurai has soared with a significant number of new collectors entering the field declaring they have been inspired by the film.

DECANTERS of all types from the 18th century to the present are the subject of an exhibition running at the Broadfield House Glass Museum, Dudley, until April 18 next year.

BUCKINGHAM Palace will host an extensive exhibition next year entitled George III and Queen Charlotte: Patronage, Collecting and Court Taste. Opening on March 26 in The Queen’s Gallery, it will feature 500 objects, drawn entirely from the Royal Collection and constituting what is thought to be one of the largest and finest groups of Georgian material ever assembled.

TIBETAN works of art are the speciality of Rossi & Rossi and they have come up with a stunning show to make their mark on Asian Art in London.

THIS week sees a two-day international conference at The Savoy in London to mark the centenary of the National Art Collections Fund. Saving Art for the Nation, A Valid Approach to 21st-Century Collecting? runs on Tuesday and Wednesday, November 11 and 12, and will focus on whether it matters if works of art that were once the pride of British private collections go overseas and how they should be rescued for the nation if we believe it is important to keep them here.

THE winners of this year’s AXA Art Awards for Asian art were announced last week as Bonhams Bond Street and Mayfair dealer Sidney Moss. Bonhams clinched the prize for the best two-dimensional work with an early Chinese blue and white rectangular panel, from the Ming dynasty’s coveted Chenghua period (1465-87), from the du Boulay collection.

A REMINDER that there is still some time to catch the 18 special exhibitions mounted by members of The Cotswolds Antique Dealers Association as part of their annual exhibitions fortnight, and this year to celebrate the association’s 25th anniversary. The shows are scheduled to close on October 25, but I am sure there will still be some exhibition items on sale after that date.

IN 1992 Norfolk dealer Liz Allport-Lomax formed Lomax Antiques Fairs to launch the East Anglian Antique Dealers Fair at Langley Park School, Loddon, Norfolk. Now she is arguably East Anglia’s top organiser with four annual events, each with a waiting list.

AXA Art are holding a one-day seminar on protecting and conserving art on October 28 at the Royal Society of Arts, London. Before Art Falls Apart: Achieving Consensus on Care, Protection and Value will look at the changing role of dealers, curators, collectors, legal and academic experts, brokers and insurers in this field.

CLOSING this Saturday (October 18) and not to be missed, is an exhibition of photographs by Michael Cooper at the Atlas Gallery, 49 Dorset Street, London W1. One of the great archives of 1960s photography, this show has prompted the Independent on Sunday to brand the snapper as “The Swinging Sixties’ poet of the lens”. Lennon, Magritte, Warhol, Burroughs, the Rolling Stones, Twiggy, and Hockney are all featured among the 37 photos priced from £800 to £6000.

What a novel idea Kent dealer Neville Pundole has come up with for his current exhibition at the Neville Pundole Gallery, The Friary, Canterbury.

BRITISH Art Market Federation president Lord Brooke is stepping up pressure on the Government to fund a workable database of stolen art. His latest call for Whitehall to support the art and antiques trade in preventing dealings in stolen objects came during the second reading of the Dealing in Cultural Objects (Offences) Bill in the House of Lords.

THREE other Stow-on-the-Wold members are also holding selling exhibitions from October 11 to 25 and a contrasting trio they are. Baggott Church Street hosts A Sense of Proportion which displays some specially chosen pieces of period furniture commissioned by the middle classes to furnish their townhouses and country manors.

FOLLOWING an evening charity opening this Wednesday the 38th Irish Antique Dealers Fair runs in the main hall of the Royal Dublin Society, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 from October 2 to 5.