Maine Antique Digest, April 2017

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30-D Maine Antique Digest, April 2017
- SHOW -
30-D
New York City
The Winter Antiques Show 2017
by Lita Solis-Cohen
The Winter Antiques Show, the grande dame of
antiques shows, now in its 63rd year, was bedecked
with giant digital snowflakes high on the walls and
with real flowers on the floors and chandeliers. The show
is like a dowager—elegant and traditional. The energy of
her youth, when Americana collectors would rush in to
their favorite stands at the 5 p.m. preview, is a memory
of a decade or two ago. This year the smaller crowd was
more deliberate and less impatient than in the old days.
They seemed cautious and bought thoughtfully. Dealers
said buyers were more willing to open their wallets
this year than in the recent past and that the market had
reached its bottom and was on the uptick.
Because M.A.D. is the “The Marketplace for
Americana,” this review will
cover only Americana at the
show. Even though each year it
has less of a presence,Americana
is, nonetheless, the focus for a
passionate group of collectors
and curators. The loan show celebrates Americana Week,
while auctions continue to attract a significant audience
for Americana.
Some Americana dealers sold well, others did just OK,
and all of them said they will keep on selling long after
the show closes. American paintings were a strong suit.
NewYork City dealer Michael Altman sold two paintings
by William J. McCloskey and one each by John Singer
Sargent, Martin Johnson Heade, and Maxim Gorky.
Philadelphia dealer Robert Schwarz sold paintings by
George Cochran Lambdin, Hermann Herzog, Adolphe
Borie, and William Hart and a pair of portraits by Samuel
F.B. Morse. Both dealers had interest in other works. The
four other American painting dealers and two dealers in
American prints reported good sales as well.
The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum
celebrated its 60th anniversary with a glorious loan
exhibition that challenged the folk art dealers to meet
the museum’s high standard. The folk portraits for sale
at the show were far better than those sold at the week’s
auctions; some sold, and some were still available after
the show closed.
The elephant in the room, pun intended, was the election
of Donald Trump. There was a smaller crowd than usual
at the January 19 preview, the night before Trump’s
inauguration. A few old-time collectors made a quick run
through this show before heading to Washington for the
inauguration. Others had left for Washington and went to
the show later in the week. Protests in New York City on
both weekends of the show did not help attendance, nor
did the fact that the long auctions took time and money
away from the show. Moreover, the New York Times gave
four times the space to the Outsider Art Fair, including
the cover story, which in the past has gone to the Winter
Antiques Show.
Nevertheless, folk portraits and formal American
furniture from the 18th and 19th centuries sold, and some
of it was bought by young collectors, according to Frank
Levy of Bernard and S. Dean Levy and Elizabeth Feld of
Hirschl & Adler, even though these buyers were not the
group that the powers that be targeted with a video on
social media released on the eve of the show proclaiming
that the show was “not your grandmother’s brown
furniture,” to the disgust of those who sell it. Very little
painted or country furniture was embraced. Americana
dealers say the show has been diminished by the inclusion
of more 20th-century material as well as 21st-century
material that can be ordered new. They say it might bring
in the decorators, but it does not bring in a young crowd.
On the other hand, Stephen Score of Boston, showing
for the first time, said, “The things that excite me about
American folk art are the gestural qualities that you find
in contemporary art. I like the fact that some twentieth-
century things are at the Winter show. It enables viewers
to see folk art the way the American painters of the 1920s
first discovered it. I like to see American folk art shown
near things that challenge what we are seeing so we can
see old things in a new way.”
Dealers and collectors cite the brilliance of TEFAF
(The European Fine Art Fair), which arrived in the U.S.
last fall to rave reviews, for scheduling two shows, one
for antiques and antiquities in late October, and another
for modern design and tribal art in May. TEFAF also
made the cultural programs produced at the Park Avenue
Armory, along with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer
Center, the beneficiaries of the opening night reception,
Folk portraits and formal
American furniture from the
18th and 19th centuries sold.
assuring its place on the armory’s calendar.
To be fair, the Winter Antiques Show is the last charity
show to survive in New York City. All the proceeds
from the preview party and the ten-day gate benefit East
Side House Settlement, which has celebrated 125 years
of community, educational training, and assistance to
people in the South Bronx.
“It is unfair to compare the Winter show with TEFAF;
they are very different,” said Liz Feld of Hirschl &Adler.
“We do a gallery exhibition with pedestals at the fall
TEFAF and a homey interior at the Winter show. The
Winter show is still the leading market for Americana
for those who live with it and for museum curators. Our
customers are all ages and from all parts of the country,
and we keep in touch with
them all year. We tell them
what we have, and they come
to New York to see it. The
Winter Antiques Show is where
Americana dealers show the
best they have saved for the show all year long. Only two
of us are New Yorkers; the rest come from the middle
of nowhere, and they meet their clients and curators in
New York.”
There is no question that the Winter show is a
crossroads, and collectors and curators from all parts of
the country check it out. Kelly Kinzle of New Oxford,
Pennsylvania, said that late on the last Sunday afternoon
of the show a curator asked for pictures, history, and the
price of something on his stand. Others said they made
sales to museums or to collectors who will give what
they bought to a museum. Moreover, all the dealers said
that the Winter show is just the beginning of sales and
that people who have seen things continue to negotiate
purchases in the months that follow. The prices, which
seem high, are generally asking prices. Dealers said
they are high in order to factor in negotiations, not only
museum discounts, but the fact that everyone wants a
deal, 10%, or sometimes 20% or 30% off.
Collectors and dealers complain about the shortage
of masterpieces and the competition of auctions.
Nevertheless, the Winter show is always a treasure
hunt full of surprises. For example, this year there were
some rare early topographical views of Georgetown and
Washington, D.C.; Natchez, Mississippi; and Boston,
Massachusetts, seen from Bunker Hill.
This is not a show where booth design is enormously
inventive. Some booths look the same every year,
but a few stands, all London dealers, showed up the
Americans. Cohen & Cohen, dealers in China trade
porcelain, demonstrated how to artfully display porcelain
without glass cabinets. Didier created a Giorgio de
Chirico-inspired setting for jewelry designed by painters,
sculptors, and architects, and Apter-Fredericks showed
English furniture in a modern library setting with painted
books on backlit glass panels. All should have won prizes
for booth design, if there were prizes.
Among the dealers in American material, Hirschl &
Adler is the perennial winner. This year the gallery’s booth
was a dining room with an architectural mantelpiece and
a large dining table from the Seymour shop in Boston,
and it was crammed with glass decanters, Tucker
porcelain, Bennington animals, and wine coasters. Frank
Levy employed Ralph Harvard to design his stand, and
he sold eight pieces of furniture.
The pictures and captions show only Americana for
M.A.D.’s focused audience and just a fraction of what
was there from January 19 to 29.
Go to ) for more about
the show.
Sally Apfelbaum photo.
This patriotic quilt commemorates the signing of the
armistice of the First World War. It was made by Mrs.
C.F. Shank of Meyersville, Maryland, in 1918. Shank
signed the quilt upside down at the top, and she also
stitched “War Declared on Germany by the US April 6,
1917, ended Nov 11, 1918. Peace was signed in this car” at
the top. The railroad car represents the private carriage
of French Marshall Ferdinand Foch where the armistice
was signed. The full-length figure of Uncle Sam, a flag,
and patriotic banners as well as a cannon and stack of
cannonballs complete the theme. Barbara Pollack of
Highland Park, Illinois, asked $45,000, and it sold.
These portraits of a young couple seated in red chairs
are attributed to George G. Hartwell (1815-1901) of the
Prior-Hamblen school. Oil on academy board, circa 1840,
the 24" x 20" (sight size) portraits have provenance that
includes Mary Allis of Southport, Connecticut. The pair
was priced at $49,500 by Barbara Pollack.
This miniature six-drawer chest,
probably southeastern Pennsylvania,
1810-15, cherry, poplar, and white
pine, with reeded drawer fronts,
turned quarter columns, and a crest
with applied bosses cut out for a
pocket watch, had small repairs. It
was $39,500 from Barbara Pollack.