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Fair's Fair
The traditional method of buying art and
antiques from a local gallery owner seems
to have almost disappeared. Nowadays, it's
fairs, fairs and more fairs. On one day
alone, I notice that 26 are taking place
all over the country.
Fair trade: one of the pair of Degas
drawings for sale at £64,000
One of the most interesting and diverse
is The Fine Art, Design & Antiques
Fair, which is being staged next week at
Olympia, west London. It echoes the trend
for combining old and new pieces in an
individual but uncluttered way, and
showcases some of the best in 20th-century
design alongside traditional antiques.
Art makes up the largest portion of the
fair, from huge matt abstracts by the
contemporary artist Elizabeth Lord (from
£1,500), to a pair of charcoal
drawings by Degas, exhibited by Connaught
Brown and priced at £64,000.
The increasingly popular post-1950
furniture is also well represented. For
£4,500 you can buy the Italian-made,
red leather `Joe Sofa' exhibited by
Whitford Fine Art. Made in 1971, this
piece of Pop Art furniture was inspired by
Joe DiMaggio, the baseball legend, and is
in the shape of a baseball glove.
If you fancy a deep sleep you might
consider the wonderful "opium" bedcover
exhibited by Esther Fitzgerald. It was
almost certainly made for the architect
William Burgess in the 19th century, and
is embroidered with poppies and an adapted
verse by Keats extolling the beneficial
effects of opium.
Not surprisingly, Burgess was a man who
believed "rules were only for incapables".
A real museum piece, this poppy-filled
slumber blanket would set you back more
than £20,000.
For those looking to put one or two
striking pieces of antique furniture into
a modern setting there is plenty to choose
from, but make sure restoration is
minimal. Surface patina is paramount.
Lewis & Lloyd will be showing a
stunning early 18th-century burr oak chest
(£39,000).
For an exotic holiday, how about
picking up a bit of antique luxury luggage
exhibited by X.S. Baggage ? A Louis
Vuitton St Petersburg trunk, formerly the
property of Princess Maria Maximilianova
Romanovska of Leuchtenberg, and bearing
her insignia, is available at
£25,000, or perhaps an Asprey's
picnic set marked with the name of its
former owner, Viscount Ridley, for
£18,500.
If you can't bear wading through the
abstract canvases and plastic furniture to
get to the Georgian antiques, then the
British Antique Dealers' Association Fair
should suit your needs. This far more
traditional affair takes place at Duke of
York Square on the King's Road, Chelsea,
from March 9-15, and will see old
stalwarts dusting down their longcases and
waxing their whatnots for another outing
among the tweeds-and-brogues brigade.
Meanwhile, the extremely rich and
museum curators of this world will be
jetting off to Maastricht on Friday for
the TEFAF, now regarded as the world's
most spectacular fair.
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