Maine Antique Digest March 2015

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Maine Antique Digest, March 2015 13-C
- SHOW -
New York City
The Salon: Art + Design
by Julie Schlenger Adell
The Salon: Art + Design rode into town during the
week of epic contemporary and modern art sales
at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, November 13-17,
2014. It was a helluva week to open a show in a hel-
luva town. The art world was buzzing with energy and
excitement. American art sales would take place the
following week.
With flair and panache Salon showed it could not only
maintain the 2013 show’s accolades but could exceed
them. Opening night saw sales in ceramics, Art Deco
furniture and accessories, contemporary furniture, art-
ists’ jewelry, and modern art—all while (or because)
thousands of glasses of champagne were being served
throughout the Park Avenue Armory.
“This show is about the display and the level of qual-
ity,” said New York City dealer Joan Mirviss. With
simple, monochromatic wall coverings of white, gray,
and black and with soft gray carpeting, the show’s look
was “harmonious” and allowed the art to “pop,” she
explained. Her booth was filled with contemporary
ceramics by Ogawa Machiko, a Japanese sculptor of
clay. By the second to last day of the show, Mirviss had
sold 21 of the 27 pieces, which ranged in price from
$5000 to $25,000.
At what other show would one see a dealer from
Antwerp display a Sonambient sculpture by Ameri-
can Harry Bertoia, or see a Paris dealer, whose father
was a well-known French decorator, display American
furniture by Frank Lloyd Wright and Harvey Ellis, a
candelabrum by Karl Kipp, and a cathedral sconce by
Charles Rohlfs? Salon achieved what dealer Lewis
Wexler does in his Philadelphia gallery on North 3rd
Street. Wexler Gallery “exhibits work that can coex-
ist in the worlds of design, fine art, decorative art and
craft,” wrote the young dealer in the show’s catalog—
or, as Belgian dealer Axel Vervoordt views his mission:
“All objects, regardless of their origin or value, share a
timeless, universal language, and intrinsic purity.”
There were no cut-off dates dictating what dealers
could bring to the show, unlike the Winter Antiques
Show, held every January in Manhattan, whose cut-off
date is 1970. That dictum leaves 45 years of art and
design out on the sidewalk rather than in the halls of
the armory, some say.
Fifty-five dealers, including 19 new to the show, dis-
played finely honed booths—exhibiting just the right
amount of works. Dealers came from London, Paris,
Amsterdam, Berlin, Turin, Seoul, Antwerp, Monte
Carlo, Stockholm, Brussels, and Cologne, as well as
New York City, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.
“We are meeting much younger people than in the
past,” said Mikaël Kraemer, whose gallery, founded
in 1875, is the oldest family-owned antiques company
in Paris. Specializing in museum-quality 18th-century
furniture and decorative arts, Monsieur Kraemer, who
started in the business 16 years ago, said the company
is the ultimate source for museums and collectors who
value privacy, confidentiality, and discretion. His pas-
sion is “more in the buying than the selling,” he said.
There are currently five family members in the business,
all of whom live in the house on Rue Monceau where the
gallery is located. Mikaël’s cousin Sandra Kraemer-Ifrah
said Kraemer’s pieces “fit with a Rothko or a Picasso.…
It’s a phenomenon that started three or four years ago,”
she said. The “new generation that wants the best art
wants the best quality pieces,” she said, and “many come
from Kraemer.” The precursor of 20th-century design
and art was French 18th-century, she said. “That’s why
we are here at Salon.”
Opening night included sales of an Andy Paiko
illuminated sculpture of blown glass, steel, and rope
($58,000) at Wexler Gallery; a very large oil painting
by Ena Swansea, Snow on 16th St., at Friedman Benda,
New York City; an ink and wash on paper by Wayne
Thiebaud, Ice Cream Cones, 1964, at Tasende Gallery,
La Jolla, California; and several neckpieces by Eva
Eisler at Mark McDonald, Hudson, New York.
Salon’s wide-ranging appeal was evident by the vis-
itors it attracted. Seen at the show were representatives
from Bonhams; a well-knownAmerican folk art collec-
tor and his dealer; a fine art dealer from East 72nd St.;
and a downtown dealer in modern furniture. “This is
where New York City Modernism dealers should be,”
said the downtown dealer, as he navigated the crowded
aisles of the show.
Sanford L. Smith & Associates managed the fair, and
Artsy was the on-line partner. Further information is
available at ) and ).
Oscar Graf, a gallery in Paris, France, showed American furniture from the early
20th century. A 1906 oak standing desk designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for the
Francis L. Smith Bank in Illi-
nois, made by John W. Ayers,
was $130,000. A 1905 cathe-
dral sconce by Charles Rohlfs
of American oak, copper, and
iron was $170,000. The 1902
desk (right) by Harvey Ellis of
American oak with fruitwood,
pewter, and copper inlay,
signed with Gustav Stickley’s
red decal, sold at the show to a
collector. The 1911 triple can-
delabrum (seen through the
opening above the desk) by
Karl Kipp, made at the Roy-
croft Shops, East Aurora, New
York, is hammered copper
with a jade cabochon. Asking
price was $275,000.
This tapestry was made in 1923
by Gunta Stölzl for the Bauhaus,
where she eventually became head
of the school’s weaving workshop.
Ulrich Fiedler, a dealer from Ber-
lin, explained that Stölzl was photo-
graphed with the rug at the request
of architect and Bauhaus founder
Walter Gropius, and the photog-
rapher fell in love with it (not with
the artist). The photographer lived
with the tapestry for years, but
when his daughter inherited it she
used it as a rug, which explains
its wear and tear. Galerie Ulrich
Fiedler asked $320,000 for it.
Arlie Sulka of Lillian Nassau
LLC, New York City, who spe-
cializes in Louis C. Tiffany and
Tiffany Studios, has expanded
into mid-century modern furni-
ture and design. For example, the
1966 walnut slab shelf (left) by
George Nakashima holds three
Tiffany Favrile pots from 1905-
10 and an Edmond Lachenal
piece from 1900. Above them
is Icelandic Poppies by James
Aponovich, a 2004 oil on canvas.
Prices were $6500 for the shelf,
a range of $7500 to $25,000 for
the pottery, and $37,500 for the
painting. Also, a 1960 walnut low
table (right) by Nakashima, 21"
x 32" x 48", was priced in the
low five figures, said Sulka. She
asked in the low six figures for
the 1906 Lotus table lamp from
Tiffany Studios and $9500 for
the 1900 Emile Lenoble pot.
This fiberglass and mosaic white gold coffee
table by Alessandro Mendini was available at
the booth Galerie Kreo, Paris. The Assisi, a lim-
ited edition of eight, can be used indoors and
outdoors and is also available in yellow gold.
Galerie Kreo asked $120,000 for the 17.72" x
70.87" x 43.31" table, made of mosaics from
Bisazza, the prime Italian mosaic company.
Paolo Scheggi, an Italian artist who died at age
31 in 1971, has been “rediscovered.” Offered by
Robilant + Voena, London, were four acrylics on
superimposed or overlaid canvases from 1966
and 1967. Prices were $285,000 for the ones on the
left, $373,000 for the middle one, and $435,000
for the one on the right. The dealer said prices
for Scheggi’s work have more than doubled in
the last two years. Not shown, another Scheggi,
Model 3, 1969, was available at the booth of Maz-
zoleni Galleria d’Arte, Turin, Italy, for $650,000.
“We are meeting much
younger people than in
the past.”
☞