Clinton Howell's musings on life, antique furniture and the antiques business. http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 17 May 2012 10:45:00 +0000 Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:45:00 +0000 Gerald Stiebel, ahighly respected fourth generation art dealer, wrote a blog the other day entitled, "The Spring Show--Another Art Fair". His review of the fair was tepid although he noted several high lights. The ennui was evident just the same and his review would have cooled my ardor if I was thinking of attending the show. The quality of the Spring Show NYC is not really an issue, in my opinion. We have some great dealers and some dealers that ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 88540285825 16 May 2012 16:45:00 +0000 In reading Penepole Treadwell's book on Johan Zoffany, the German painter who emigrated to England in 1760, I came across an interesting fact that pertains to one of the pieces in my inventory. Eighteenth century England, and Europe for that matter, was filling up fast with clubs. There were eating and drinking clubs, science clubs, literary clubs, fraternal orders, charities, etc. Zoffany, apparently, was a Freemason and a number of his clients were as well. To wit, he painted portraits ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 80254328250 14 May 2012 16:45:00 +0000 The Art and Antiques Design blog emanating out of London is straining to become an industry voice and I applaud the effort being taken by Elliot Lee and Francesca Fiumano on the industry's behalf. In point of fact, there is not much of an industry voice no matter how many organizations exist claiming to represent their group of dealers. We are a splintered industry for a variety of reasons, most notably because we are much less businessmen and more ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 58228045701 29 April 2012 16:45:00 +0000 I am going to the Affordable Art Fair tonight and then tomorrow to the Sculptural Object, Functional Art Fair (SOFA) The SOFA fair is fun. I love looking at new things and trying to determine whether or not they will, in the long run, be considered art. To that end, two of the exhibitors that I have a lot of time for are Adrian Sassoon fron London and Joan Mirviss from New York. Adrian has dropped the fair this ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 68221688270 18 April 2012 16:45:00 +0000 I flew out to San Francisco last week to spend some time with my children, Henry and Alice. Alice lives there and Henry was visiting from London. Alice works for Geographic Expeditions, a high end travel company, and made in depth itineraries for both of us, Henry's covering one extra day as he arrived earlier than me. On Wednesday morning, I was kitted out with a bicycle, my son already had his, and we biked across the Golden Gate Bridge. ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 49658912420 17 April 2012 16:45:00 +0000 My father's mother had a terrific attic. It was accessed by stairs that pulled down from the ceiling in a long hallway. My grandfather must have built them as they are far sturdier than the modern pull down steps. In any case, my grandmother traveled with an uncle who was an admiral in the British navy the year she turned 21 which was in 1900. They visited, among other places, Japan and China where she must have purchased the photos ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 31905162334 16 April 2012 16:45:00 +0000 The economy in Europe is said to be reviving because of stimulus projects by European governments. If this is true, the line of austerity advocated by the French and the Germans is more flexible than previously thought. The upshot, of course, is that this will affect the economy in the U.S. in a positive fashion as it will limit the risk of a double recession in Europe. News such as this is welcome if it is true, but I find ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 58608490228 26 March 2012 16:45:00 +0000 Bill Maher wrote an interesting editorial in the NY Times today about how so many people are so easily outraged by just about anything these days. it doesn't matter which political persuasion someone is, just whether there is a point to be made about the insensitivity of the speaker. It is a game and a really stupid one, in my opinion, not just because the intent of the speaker is, as a rule, ignored, but also because it becomes a ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 78498506546 22 March 2012 16:45:00 +0000 The Spring Show NYC, the second year of which happens this spring from May 2-6, is a life long dream of the Art and Antique Dealers League of America. It is held in the Seventh Regiment Armory between 67th and 68th Streets on Park Avenue. I am often asked why there needs to be yet another fair promoting art or antiques? Aren't there enough already? The answer to this question, like many questions, is yes and no. Yes, there are enough ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 45386379957 13 March 2012 16:45:00 +0000 Haruki Murakami, the Japanese novelist, is particularly adept at lifting the reader out of both the mental and spatial norms of daily life, although daily life is what it feels like until all of a sudden, it doesn't. He creates a dimension that is unique and often quite eerie that gives the reader no sound footing. The style is akin to Edward Allen Poeveering to Franz Kafka, Poe-like in its simplicity, Kafka-like in its obscurity. In short, he takes the ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 44722759723 01 March 2012 16:45:00 +0000 The development of an antique show is not unlike a hamster giving birth to an elephant. Its a tight squeeze and no one knows what the identity will be once the show is born. Masterpiece, a relatively new fair going into its third year, has endeavored to become a place where great dealers must show. Maastricht, or TEFAF, has already reached that level although there were a number of years where the show strained to be noticed. Its remote location ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 20155698060 27 February 2012 16:45:00 +0000 The interesting thing about the two hundred and fifty million dollars spent on the Cezanne the other day is not that two hundred fifty million is a huge sum, but that it only buys one little Cezanne. What could you buy for such a sum? You could probably buy every piece of English furniture on the market, just as the Chinese are trying to vacuum America of every Chinese work of art, but once you started buying, the market would ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 93856883049 07 February 2012 16:45:00 +0000 Antique show organizers, as I mentioned in my most recent blog, are looking for ways to attract new people. The Pavilion of Art and Design (PAD), a French based show that is in both Paris and London, opened last November in the Seventh Regiment Armory. Allegedly, the show was not about antiques. In fact, there were antiques, but there were also new things. The concept, I believe, was to eliminate the word antique from the title of the show and ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 76015657186 03 February 2012 16:45:00 +0000 As it is the 58th year of the Winter Antiques Show, I thought it might be interesting to try and understand just what it is that people want from shows, particularly shows in the Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Ave. It is the premiere venue for art and antique shows in New York City and it is also the home of several other prestigious fairs during the year. But at the moment, people, dealers and organizers alike, are wondering just ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 19000089168 27 January 2012 16:45:00 +0000 How many mistakes does it take to to understand that a solution is, more often than not, a process of trial and error. The word failure is freighted with negativity, but it should not be. In fact, it is the first step in the discovery of a way to make things work. Watching babies begin to crawl and then walk mirrors this and it continues throughout the physical developmental process. Why then is the failure to achieve something quickly ... http://www.clintonhowell.com/antique_english_furniture_blog.asp 43162637948 16 January 2012 16:45:00 +0000