Maine Antique Digest April 2015

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28-D Maine Antique Digest, April 2015
- SHOW -
The 16th New York Ceram-
ics Fair, held January 21-25,
became the New York
Ceramics & Glass Fair in 2015.
Glass has in fact been offered at
this fair for years. British dealer
Mark West and Carlisle, Penn-
sylvania, dealer Ian Simmonds
have been selling European and
American glass at this fair for
nearly a decade, and last year
Jeffrey Evans, a Mt. Crawford,
Virginia, collector, dealer, and
auctioneer, brought more Amer-
ican glass to the fair. Christo-
pher Sheppard, a much-beloved
London dealer, had showed early
glass here when his health per-
mitted, and curators would line
up at his stand to see ancient and
early European rarities. Gary
Stradling also previously offered
early American glass and intro-
duced Simmonds to the fair, but
Stradling decided to retire from
the show this year and deal pri-
vately from his Park Avenue
apartment.
The addition of glass in the
title of the show allowed London
dealer Sylvia Powell to feature
20th-century Italian glass sculp-
ture designed by Picasso and
Dali with high five- and six-fig-
ure prices. Lynda Willauer of
Nantucket offered German glass
Christmas trees for a few hun-
dred dollars each. Martin Cohen
of NewYork City has sold Italian
glass at this show for the last few
years. He said the glass business
picked up after the Carlo Scarpa
exhibition at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art in 2013-14. New
York City dealer Leo Kaplan has
always offered a few pieces of
English cameo glass by Thomas
Webb & Sons and paperweights,
some by the contemporary artist
Paul Stankard. Martin Chasin of
Fairfield, Connecticut, was new
to the show this year and showed
18th- and early 19th-century
English and Irish glass. His cli-
ents who used to see him down-
town at the Armory Antique
Show, which was canceled this
year, followed him uptown, and
he sold well.
Although glass has been part
of the Ceramics Fair, ceramics
from the 17th, 18th, and early
19th centuries are the show’s
strong suit, and many of the old-
time collectors ignored the con-
temporary works.
As usual, the most passion-
ate collectors lined up early for
the preview and made a beeline
to Garry Atkins’s stand. At the
end of the preview, the London
dealer said he had his best open-
ing night ever. He sold multiple
pieces of English delft, a Por-
tuguese tin-glazed charger, a
medieval jug, and some cream-
ware, agateware, and salt-glazed
wares to collectors from all parts
of the country. Dealer Roderick
Jellicoe, also from London, who
offers English porcelain, said he
sold very well, too. Both said
they sold more early in the week
than during the last weekend;
others said business was steady
all week. This is a long six-day
show, counting the Tuesday eve-
ning preview.
The preview is a kind of
gathering of the clans. While
the delft and creamware collec-
tors were gathering at Atkins’s
stand, the mochaware collectors
gathered across the aisle at the
New York City
The New York Ceramics & Glass Fair 2015
by Lita Solis-Cohen
stand of Martyn Edgell of Cam-
bridgeshire, England, where they
found rare forms and patterns to
add to their collections. Gilford,
New Hampshire, dealer Mark
Allen’s clients found a selec-
tion of royal portraits on English
delft, some Dutch figures, and
several posset pots. His largest
posset pot sold. Leon-Paul Van
Geenen of Delft, the Nether-
lands, a specialist in Dutch Delft,
had to wait until Saturday for his
biggest sales. A client bought
every garniture displayed on top
of his cabinets. He took them
down one by one and packed
them up in three large boxes. Van
Geenen said he had a very good
show, but even though he wrote
a book on white tin-glazed earth-
enware that appears frequently
in Dutch still life paintings and
sold a lot of books, he sold very
little white Delft. White Delft
is rare because it was everyday
dishes, and when it broke it was
tossed.
Robert Prescott-Walker of
Polka Dot Antiques, Waccabuc,
New York, showing here for the
first time, said he sold well, too.
He had two museums interested
in several pieces and collectors
lined up if the museum acces-
sions committees turned them
down. “I needed to a get my
name out there and the fact that
I deal in high-end Staffordshire,”
he said.
A.J. Warren of Warren
Antiques, Wilton, Connecticut,
had friends Malcolm Magruder
of Millwood, Virginia, and Keith
Adams of Delaware come up to
mind her stand for the preview,
and they had a good show sell-
ing 18th-century English ceram-
ics, the strongest segment of the
market at this show.
Ian Simmonds, the guru of
American glass, said he had
long conversations with cura-
tors and collectors and had lots
of business pending. Some of
his clients left with boxes. He
willingly shares his interest in
the development of technology
and design; he also writes about
the designers and documents the
history of glass manufacturing in
the 19th century.
On Sunday afternoon Mar-
cia Moylan and Jacqueline
Smelkinson of The Spare Room
Antiques, Baltimore, Maryland,
said they had the best New York
show ever and had sold their
most expensive and rarest pieces
first. Their specialty is deco-
rative English wares from the
first quarter of the 19th century.
“There was a lull in the market
during the recession, but this
show was like old times,” they
said in unison.
Paul Vandekar of Earle D.
Vandekar of Knightsbridge,
Maryknoll, New York, said he
sold a lot of Fornasetti plates,
as well as Chinese export por-
celain, creamware, and English
porcelain to designers as well as
collectors. Alan Kaplan of Leo
Kaplan sold polychrome salt-
glazed stoneware, creamware,
and paperweights. Sylvia Pow-
ell had some big sales of glass
and ceramics, selling sculptural
works by 20th-century mas-
ters Picasso, Leger, Dali, and
Cocteau. Lynda Willauer, who
brings a huge assortment of
ceramics, said she sold Chinese
export porcelain, majolica, and
Staffordshire, and for the first
time German crystal Christmas
trees.
Dealers say this show is not
over when they pack out; busi-
ness goes on all year. Most of
the dealers in early wares are not
happy to share the spotlight with
dealers in contemporary ceram-
ics, but a few of them included
some contemporary glass.
The dealers in contempo-
rary ceramics are plowing fresh
ground. Leslie Ferrin of Ferrin
Contemporary, Cummington,
Massachusetts, has been the
trailblazer, and she took more
space this year than she has in
the past. Porcelain artist Cliff
Lee (b. 1951) has shown at the
Ceramics Fair before, and his
work demonstrates how a con-
temporary artist can take from
the past and bring the traditions
The preview
is a kind of
gathering
of the clans.
up to date and to new heights.
He sells a few pieces every time
he shows, often to museums.
This year he sold a rare yellow-
glaze vessel to the St. Louis Art
Museum. Chen Yan, who moved
to New York from mainland
China, brought an impressive
array of contemporary bowls,
tiles, plates, and sculpture, with
hefty price tags, that was much
admired.
Iliad, a multifaceted down-
town New York City gallery
new to the fair, featured the
contemporary work of Steve
Tobin, who works in blown glass
and clay often combined with
forged steel. He explodes clay
to make vessels of all sizes that
have a residue of glass-like glaze
inside after they are fired. The
small “Bangs,” as he calls them,
3" high, sold at $200 each and
started a number of new collec-
tions. Iliad also offered mosaics
by Andrea Zemel. The larger
works were harder to sell. The
Iliad display dominated half the
third floor, while Leslie Ferrin’s
works filled most of the other
half. Leslie Ferrin of Ferrin Con-
temporary took two stands, giv-
ing her a chance to show artists
working in America and China,
with blue and white dominating
both. The Haggertys brought
their ceramics to New York from
their studio in Santa Barbara,
California. They sold between
25 and 30 of their smaller vases
priced at $400 to $900. Martin
Cohen in the adjacent stand sold
six ceramic sculptures by Jose
Arias, acontemporary Domini-
can Republic artist who works in
NewYork and who got a positive
mention in the New York Times
review of the show.
This is the only show Vir-
ginia ceramic artist and
ceramic historian Michelle
Erickson does in New York
City, which provides a perfect
time to talk to her about her
politically charged works in
traditional styles. Her work is
collected by those who have
collections of early ceramics
as well as by museums that
focus on contemporary works.
For more information, check
English delft octagonal portrait
plate, painted with William and
Mary, London or Lambeth,
$11,000 from Mark Allen of Gil-
ford, New Hampshire.
Robert Prescott-Walker
of Polka Dot Antiques,
Waccabuc, New York,
showing at the fair for the
first time, asked $5800
for this rare marked Fell
Pottery pearlware luster
watch hutch, impressed
“Fell,” 1810-20. The 10¾"
high watch hutch is dec-
orated in canary yellow,
green enamel, and pink
luster, and modeled with
a recumbent lion; it lacks
the final. It is from the
collection of John J. Sny-
der Jr.
Rare Staffordshire pearlware table
base group titled The Death of Munrow
(inscribed in two oval plaques), 1820-
30, modeled as a large tiger attacking
the stricken Lieutenant Munrow, on
a rectangular base with bracket feet,
14½" high, with restoration to the tail
and a tooth. One of the rarest and most
sought-after Staffordshire figures, it
was $75,000 from Robert Prescott-
Walker of Polka Dot Antiques. It is
under consideration by a museum, and
there is a collector in line if the museum
declines.
To get into the potter’s guild, an
apprentice had to present a mas-
terpiece. Léon-Paul Van Geenen
of Delft, the Netherlands said this
winged dragon teapot with a rabbit
on its lid is such a masterpiece. Van
Geenen wanted $95,000 for it.
Dutch Delft tulip vase, in
the form of a Chinese man,
$25,000 from Léon-Paul
Van Geenen.
Gallé cats and dogs were priced at $11,000 to
$15,000 from Leo Kaplan, New York City.
Four-color Acoma vase, 41" high, circa
1890, $12,000 from John Suval of Philip
Suval, Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Iznik tile, circa 1600,
$9000 from Anavian Gal-
lery, New York City.
Martin Cohen of New York City,
asked $4500 for this ceramic sculp-
ture by Jose Arias, a Dominican
Republic artist who works in New
York. Arias calls his part-animal/
part-human forms “bakas.” Cohen
calls them “protective spirits, sort of
like house insurance and health care
all in one.”