NY Winter Antiques Show

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Parent Category: Other Festivals

Category: Art/Antiques

Published on Saturday, 23 January 2010 02:58

Written by L E Shannon

The 56th annual Winter Antiques Show is being held from January 22-31, 2010 at the Park Avenue Armory, 67th Street and Park Avenue, New York City. Now in its 56th year, America’s most prestigious antiques show features 75 renowned experts in American, English, European, and Asian fine and decorative arts. `

This year, specialists in 18th and early 19th century American furniture, 20th century fine and decorative arts, and Chinese furniture join the show. From an Egyptian sarcophagus from1000 B.C. through mid-Century modern furniture, every object exhibited at the Winter Antiques Show is vetted for quality and authenticity.

All net proceeds from the Show benefit East Side House Settlement and its new initiative, the Winter Antiques Show Education Fund.

The popular Young Collectors Night will be held Thursday, January 28th.

Select rare and early photographs by the British inventor of photography on paper, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877), will be on view at the booth of Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs.

The loan exhibition for 2010 celebrates Historic New England, the oldest, largest, and most comprehensive regional heritage organization in the nation, with 36 historically and architecturally significant properties.

Colonial to Modern: A Century of Collecting at Historic New England features objects from the 18th to the 20th centuries, including furniture, paintings by academic and provincial artists, ceramics made in New England and abroad, and personal accessories from diamond brooches to silk brocade shoes. The emphasis is on superb objects with great stories, such as the Quincy family’s Boston-made Japanned high chest, tour de force of 18th century furniture, which belonged to one of New England’s most influential families.

Jeff Daly, who recently retired as senior design advisor to the director at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and now heads his own design firm, designed the loan exhibition.

New Exhibitors:

Liz O’Brien specializes in American and European decorative arts of the 20th century, with a focus on classical forms, rich and unusual materials and superior, studio-quality production. At this year’s Show, she exhibits one-of-a-kind examples by English tastemaker Syrie Maugham, designer Frances Elkins and artist Max Kuehne.

Lost City Arts: Established in New York City in 1982, Lost City Arts is recognized internationally as one of the premiere sources of 20th century decorative and fine arts. At his first Show, Lost City Arts owner James Elkind features the work of sculptor Harry Bertoia, including two seminal works: a Bush form that stands over six feet tall, circa 1968, and a monumental Dandelion that was originally exhibited in the Eastman Kodak Pavilion at the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

Maison Gerard focuses on French Art Deco furniture, lighting and objects d’art. For its first appearance at the Show, the gallery presents a pair of mirrored panels, designed by Jean Dupas, from the SS Normandy. Launched in 1935, the ship was the ambassador of France created by the nation’s best artists and craftsman to represent the country.

Nicholas Grindley Works of Art has concentrated on Chinese art, with a particular interest in furniture and works of art related to scholar's taste, since 1976. For his first year at the Show, he will bring a selection of Chinese furniture and scholars' objects including a group of table rocks from the Ian and Susan Wilson collection.

Peter Petrou Works of Art makes its Show debut. Among the works is an iconic 1930s bent plywood armchair by Gerald Summers and an exquisite Spanish 17th century portrait figure of a penitent donor, together with ethnographic artifacts and unusual Eastern works of art.

C. L. Prickett, in its 49th year and third generation of operation, specializes in the finest examples of 18th and early 19th century American furniture. Their areas of focus include Queen Anne, Chippendale, and Federal furniture and clocks.

Selected Highlights:

Sarcophagus. Egypt, Third Intermediate Period, Thebes (Deir el-Bahari?), 21st Dynasty. Circa 1000 B.C. Wood with extensive gesso and polychrome. This impressive Egyptian mummy case from around 1000 B.C. belonged to a chantress at the Temple of Amun in Thebes. Among the finest of its kind still in private hands, the mummy case is remarkable for its superb condition and the fine quality of the lavishly painted images, which illustrate sacred texts from the Book of the Dead. Safani

Vessel in the form of the Prince of Flowers. Aztec. Circa 15th-16th century. Redware. This vessel, most likely made for royals given its fine workmanship, was used as a pulke (tequila) holder. Among its unusual features are press molds representing various gods in the Aztec pantheon. Its shape suggests the bulb oroot of an agave plant. Throckmorton Fine Art, Inc.

Portrait of Watteau, by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. Plaster. This is a fascinating portrait of the painter Jean- Antoine Watteau, made by Carpeaux as a plaster model for a monument he was creating for the artist at their shared hometown of Valenciennes in Northern France. This beautifully animated and vividly expressive plaster bust was discovered in the collection of the Swedish sculptor Christian Eriksson, who lived in Paris from 1883. Daniel Katz Limited.

Oval Mirror with Candle Arms, Shelves, and Festoons. Circa 1800. American eastern white pine (pinus strobus), gessoed and gilded, with iron wire with plaster ornament, gilded, and iron rods, and with mirror plate. A combination of festoons, swags, rosettes, urns, and grape and grape leaf details, this mirror is an amalgam of the best of early Neo-classical English design elements masterfully woven together. The inspiration is likely English architects and designers Robert and James Adam, but the composition is decidedly different. Having been made in the United States, it uses an English vocabulary in a new ways. Hirschl and Adler Galleries, Inc.

For the Squire, by Sir John Everett Millais. 1882. Oil on canvas. One of the most celebrated images of Victorian childhood, this much-exhibited painting shows Millais at the height of his powers. The Times critic described the girl as the lodge-keeper’s child, holding out a letter for Sir John, whose awful presence (to be imagined by the spectator) is producing its due effect upon the mind and face of the little messenger. The Fine Art Society.

Oxford, High Street & St. Mary’s Church, by Henry Fox Talbot. Likely September 1843. This exceptionally rare photograph will be on display among other works by Fox Talbot in a booth inspired by the oriel window at the artist’s home, Lacock Abbey. Hans P. Kraus, Jr., Fine Photographs

Little Girl in a Large Red Hat, by Mary Cassatt. Circa 1902-05. Oil on canvas. Around 1900, Mary Cassatt added a new type of composition to her repertory: the young girl seated alone or with a dog. Inspired by 17th century Dutch and Flemish portraits as well as English portraits of the Romantic period, Cassatt updated the genre by drawing her models from the families of local servants. Nevertheless, she instilled her sitters with a strong sense of presence and dignity.

The Farwell Building Chandelier, by Tiffany Studios. Circa 1915. Glass and bronze. This "Indian Pattern" chandelier features an elaborate pattern of deep blue, mottled red, orange and yellow glass tiles. The present example is one of three similar chandeliers designed by Tiffany Studios for the entrance hall of the Farwell Building in Detroit, Michigan, designed by the Detroit architectural firm of Rogers & Bonnah and opened on March 8, 1915. By the early 1970s the Farwell building stood vacant and it was eventually donated to the Detroit Historical Society and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Macklowe Gallery

Armchair, designed by Gerald Summers. 1934. Birch plywood. Made from a single rectangle of airplane plywood, Summers achieved with this Modernist work what his counterparts across Europe and Scandinavia had been striving for: it describes in the simplest term the ideal unity of material, production, function and form. Peter Petrou Works of Art

Autograph Letter, signed by Audrey Hepburn. January 6, 1982. Three pages. This letter written to her father’s second wife, Fidelma, exemplifies the kindness for which Hepburn was famous. Kenneth W. Rendell Gallery

The Four Elements, by Paul Manship. 1914. Parcel-gilt bronze reliefs. The architect William Welles Bosworth commissioned Manship to design these four panels for the American Telephone and Telegraph Company building in lower Manhattan. These reliefs were inset into the facade facing Broadway, while four slightly larger versions (collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art) were mounted on the other side of the building. Although Manship had displayed his knowledge and affinity for Greek and Renaissance sculpture in his previous work, The Four Elements is a testament to the sculptor’s burgeoning interest in Asian art. Gerald Peters Gallery

Always a highlight of the Show is the booth of portrait miniature dealer Elle Shushan. This year, her space will be inspired by the dining room of the Harrison Gray Otis House, described by contemporary accounts as the most elegant private home in America. Otis, a powerful Federalist who served as Mayor of Boston and Senator from Massachusetts, made his considerable fortune as the developer of Beacon Hill. Sally Foster Otis entertained lavishly in their dining room, adorned with yellow walls, scarlet drapes, blue wainscoting, and an Adam mantle. The Boston home, a National Historic Landmark, now meticulously restored, is the headquarters for Historic New England.

About the Winter Antiques Show
The Winter Antiques Show was established in 1955 by East Side House Settlement, a social services institution located in the South Bronx. The 2010 Show sponsor is The Magazine Antiques, with Peter Brant as Honorary Chairman. The loan exhibition, Colonial to Modern: A Century of Collecting at Historic New England is sponsored by Chubb Personal Insurance, which has sponsored the loan exhibition for fourteen consecutive years.

About the Winter Antiques Show Education Fund
For more than 50 years, the Winter Antiques Show has provided crucial financial support for East Side House Settlement, which offers a variety of social services and educational programs to those living in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx, one of the poorest congressional districts in America. Recognizing that education is the key to opportunity, East Side House-in partnership with New York City’s Department of Education-founded two new schools in the community: Mott Haven Village Preparatory High School and Bronx Haven High School. The Winter Antiques Show Education Fund was established to provide college readiness and other programs for these students as they strive to obtain a high school diploma and college education. The schools’ initial enrollment of 70 will soon reach 700 students, with impressive graduation and college acceptance rates.

visit the Show’s website at www.winterantiquesshow.com.

The Winter Antiques Show
January 22-31, 2010

Park Avenue Armory, 67th Street and Park Avenue,
New York City

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