New Spring Show racks up interest and some sales
The dealer-run event hopes to fill a void for traditional arts and antiques in May

NEW YORK. Intending to attract interest in conventional art and antiques, the Art and Antiques Dealers League of America hatched the Spring Show NYC, which debuted at the Park Avenue Armory from 28 April-2 May. A total of 65 dealers participated, among them Winter Antiques Show veterans and refugees from the defunct Haughton International Fine Art Fair.

“We realized we had to create a new fair with accessible prices to attract the younger generation of collectors,” said Clinton Howell, AADLA president. So, the league recruited Manhattan interior designer Lars Bolander, who created a light setting with peach, pumpkin and chartreuse stand walls and lit up the three-storey-high Armory ceiling. The organisation also advertised the fair heavily, roped in 18 young collectors groups and featured dealer material in Bergdorf’s windows on Fifth Avenue. Decorators turned out in droves, as did the U2’s Edge, actress Chloë Sevigny and Ivanka Trump.

The vernissage pulled in a respectable 1,495 visitors. Fashion designer Valentino turned up twice and walked off with a 19th-century Korean lacquer tray from the Manhattan exhibitor NAGA Antiques. “I’m pleased with the fair,” said Valentino. Yet steep ticketed antiques like Howell’s English 1755 gilt mirror tagged at $275,000 remained unclaimed.

Primarily deals were clinched for lower priced material as with New York-based Yew Tree House Antiques, which sold a 17th-century English oak settee for $15,000. New York dealership Earle Vandekar sold four 1865 “woolies” maritime pictures at $25,000 each, a set of 1749 German engravings of birds for $45,000 and cream ware pottery to both seasoned and new clientele.

The Massachusetts silver dealers Spencer Marks sales included a pair of Bay State Arts and Crafts 1915 silver and gold altar vases, designed by Arthur J. Stone and Herbert Taylor, from the chapel of the Connecticut prep school Pomfret, priced at over $100,000 and taken for consideration by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Pictures were slower to move. Questroyal sold Reginald Marsh’s New York City Women 1948 work on paper for $175,000. And private Connecticut dealer Thomas Colville sold John Lafarge’s oil 1886 portrait of his wife and two South Seas watercolours totalling around $500,000 to a longtime client. “I needed a fair between February and fall and now attendance has picked up,” said Colville.