Current & Coming |
Antiques season in New York
January 19, 2010 |
Winter Antiques Show
This year's fifty-sixth annual Winter Antiques Show will feature six new exhibitors—including two who specialize in early twentieth-century decorative arts, New York's Liz O'Brien and Lost City Arts—to complement the always stunning array that is the show's signature. Its loan exhibitions are also always remarkable in the way they transform a very small space into a lively gallery that conveys the essence of the subject at hand: this year it is the collections of Historic New England. The oldest, largest, and most comprehensive regional heritage organization in the country, Historic New England comprises thirty-six historically and architecturally significant properties, as well as a collection of more than 110,000 objects spanning four centuries. A full lecture program over the course of the show will cover topics related to Historic New England's collections as well as a wide variety of other subjects. A keynote address entitled "Things of Beauty" will be delivered by Peter J. Gomes of Harvard University on January 22. As always, the Winter Antiques Show is a benefit for East Side House Settlement in the Bronx.
Winter Antiques Show · Park Avenue Armory, New York · January 22-31 · www.winterantiquesshow.com
American Antiques Show
While some things are changing at the popular American Antiques Show this year—namely a redesign of the lobby and floor plan by Ned Jalbert Interior Design (Jalbert is also an expert in American Indian art and one of the show's exhibitors) and six new dealers—the show remains the only all-American antiques show held in New York during "antiques week" and features the eclectic mix of fine, decorative, and folk art objects that draws throngs of new and experienced collectors alike. As always, proceeds benefit the American Folk Art Museum, and the ticket price includes two-for-one admission to the museum as well as complimentary shuttle service between the show and the museum. There is also an extensive educational series for collectors, including a panel discussion on the state of the art market, a tour of the show with the museum's curator, Stacy C. Hollander, an appraisal day, and, for museum members, a visit to a private collection.
American Antiques Show · Metropolitan Pavilion, New York · January 21-24 · www.theamericanantiques show.org
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Current & Coming |
Cartier and America
January 6, 2010 | Organized to celebrate the firm's one hundred years in the United States, Cartier and America, which opened last month at San Francisco's Legion of Honor, explores the history of the house of Cartier from its first great successes as the "king of jewelers and the jeweler to kings" at the end of the nineteenth century through the 1960s and 1970s, when Cartier supplied international celebrities with jewels and luxury accessories, and up to the present.
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Current & Coming |
Poetry and painting
December 31, 2009 | Among this year's best surprises is the moving exhibition Bold, Cautious, True: Walt Whitman and American Art of the Civil War Era, which opened during the summer at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis, Tennessee, and remains on view at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York, through January 24, 2010. Taking its title from a Whitman poem, the exhibition explores the American writer's poetry and prose to gain a deeper understanding of the transformation in the mood, the point of view, and the character of art produced in this country between 1861 and 1867.
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Current & Coming |
Carolle Thibaut-Pomerantz and the timeless allure of wallpaper
December 7, 2009 | The new book by art historian and vintage wallpaper expert Carolle Thibaut-Pomerantz, Wallpaper: A History of Style and Trends (Flammarion, 2009), offers a visually stunning and comprehensive survey of decorative wall coverings. Chronicling wallpaper's evolution—from guild organization in the 
16th century through its refinement in 18th-century France; the technical advancement of the panoramique; trade and interpretation in the United States; and transformation into modern and then contemporary art—Thibaut-Pomerantz cites major exhibitions and provides detailed historical analysis across many countries, providing an invaluable resource on her subject.
The volume is generously illustrated with examples from premier manufacturers Dufour, Zuber, and Réveillon, along with limited-edition papers by contemporary artists such as Calder, Warhol, Miró, and Matisse. Examples of wallpapers in situ are particularly arresting, and some highlights include: a view of the Porcelain Room at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna covered in the 18th-century blue Chinoiseries, the scenic wallpaper reissued from Zuber that Jacqueline Kennedy hung in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House, and a tromp l'oeil paper depicting shelves of books designed by Deborah Bowness for Christian Lacroix's decoration of the Hôtel du Petit Moulin in Paris.
Current & Coming |
American paintings at auction
November 30, 2009 | On the horizon are the fall sales of American paintings, drawings, and sculpture at Christie's and Sotheby's in New York. Among the highlights to be offered at Christie's, on December 2, is Andrew Wyeth's 1960 Above the Narrows, a painting the New York Times art critic Roberta Smith once referred to as "bleak" and "inexplicably barren," featuring a young boy in shorts and shirt in a desolate landscape. While important examples of Wyeth's tempera paintings on panel or paper can bring auction prices in the millions, this picture's estimate of $3 to $5 million suggests Christie's is banking on a continued boost in interest due to the artist's death earlier this year. 
On December 3, Sotheby's is offering Wyeth's 1968 watercolor Bikini, depicting his frequent subject Siri Erickson posing seminude at the back door of her shed (the same door that appears in Erickson's Barn and Maine Door). In a 1976 interview with Thomas Hoving then the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wyeth described his pictures of Siri as representing "an invigorating, zestful, powerful phenomenon." Being sold from the estate of the artist and collector Arthur Byron Phillips, the work has an estimate of $300,000 to $500,000.
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Pickle Dish, American China Manufactory (Bonnin and Morris), Philadelphia, 1771-72. Soft-paste porcelain with lead glaze; height 4 3/16, width 4 1/2
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