Organisations

Arts Council England have launched Own Art, a new national interest-free loan scheme to encourage people to buy art.

EBAY users are being warned to look out for the Second Chance Offer scam that is among the latest frauds to hit the online marketplace. In this ruse, scammers impersonating eBay sellers target disappointed underbidders of high-price lots claiming to offer them the ‘second chance’ to buy the lot.

CHRISTIE'S have announced that discussions with the National Trust for Scotland concerning a private sale of Dumfries House and its contents have ended.

WEST Midlands Police have arrested three people from Birmingham in connection with the theft of Staffordshire figures from the Antiques for Everyone fair after the items were spotted on eBay.

SOUTHAMPTON Institute has two reasons to celebrate this week: its newly adopted status as a university college, granted on November 1, and the awarding of a number of prizes to its fine arts valuation students.

COMPLETING this year’s LAPADA survey carries an additional incentive – the prospect of a week’s holiday in Jamaica.

DMG Antiques Fairs have put up £350,000 for a new building at the Newark and Nottinghamshire Showground and secured the venue for another 20 years.

DMG Antique Fairs have reconfirmed their commitment to the new three-day format Newark fairs for 2005. Acknowledging that many people had voiced strong views that had not gone unheard, managing director Jason Franks emphasised dmg’s long-term commitment to the fair in terms of promotion and investment linked to a weekend slot.

THE winners of the Asian Art in London Outstanding Work of Art Awards, sponsored by the Antiques Trade Gazette, were announced last week.

HAVING staged fairs with varying success in Birmingham and London, LAPADA, our largest trade association, enters a new era this month with the launch of a new event at a new venue – The LAPADA Autumn Antiques and Fine Art Fair which will run at The Centaur at Cheltenham Racecourse, Gloucestershire from October 21 to 24.

GRAHAM Smith of Graham Smith Antiques in Jesmond, Newcastle has joined LAPADA’s board of directors. He started his own business in 1999 after 27 years working with Owen Humble Antiques.

THERE is still a chance to book tickets for the RICS conference in Leeds from October 15-17.

SIR Nicholas Goodison is the winner of the first CINOA Prize, a new award devised by the international confederation of associations of art and antiques dealers.

AT a time when many dealers are scaling down and reducing costs, Burford sporting antiques specialist, Manfred Schotten, is opening his new trade warehouse to coincide with his Old Sport. Here's Sport Indeed exhibition as part of the CADA autumn selling exhibition which runs from October 9-23.

RELATIVES of one of Italy’s leading 20th century glass designers have launched an assault on the trade in works using his name.

THE National Art Collections Fund (Art Fund) has criticised the state of public collecting in the UK on the same day as announcing a £500,000 offer to help keep the Macclesfield Psalter in the UK.

THIS year’s RICS art and antiques conference promises three days of tours, talks and enjoyment in and around Leeds.

FRAUDSTERS are targeting internet bidders once more with the ‘stolen picture’ and ‘stolen identity’ scams on eBay.

LAPADA have abandoned Claridge’s as the venue for their London fair but plans for the launch of their LAPADA Autumn Antiques & Fine Art Fair are well advanced and well received by members of our largest trade association.

CINOA, the international confederation of associations of art and antiques dealers, is to sponsor an annual prize to celebrate major contributions to scholarship and the arts.