Displaying items by tag: Masterpiece London

With exhibitors including Theo Fennell, Hemmerle, Maserati and Jaeger-LeCoultre, and food provided by Le Caprice, Scott’s and The Ivy, Masterpiece London, now in its sixth edition, is all about the finer things in life (until 1 July). This includes a broad range of fine art, fr om antiquities to contemporary, that sit comfortably in the tent, designed and built by Stabilo, the company also responsible for the Tefaf, Maastricht tent. Masterpiece does have a feel of the Dutch fair, but is weighted much more towards the luxury arena and its cross-collectors rather than museums and trade specialists. One of the fair's strengths is its timing, says the Rome-based dealer Alessandra di Castro: “It coincides perfectly with the Impressionist and Modern auctions this week, post-war and contemporary next week, and London Art Week—everybody is here.”

Here are some highlights you should not miss:

Since its launch in 2010, Masterpiece London has quickly emerged as one of the world’s finest and most stylish art and antique fairs. Attracting an inimitable array of collectors, curators, celebrities, and aristocrats from around the globe, few young fairs carry as much cachet as Masterpiece London. Held in the middle of the city’s bustling summer art and auction season, the fair will kick off with an exclusive preview day on Thursday, June 24, on the South Grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea.

A cross-collecting fair for art, antiques, and design, Masterpiece London will present a...

A rare, never-before-displayed Andy Warhol painting depicting socialite and Manhattan-based real estate attorney Olga Berde Mahl will make its public debut at Masterpiece London from June 25–July 1. Aptly titled "The Socialite," it was created between 1986–87, and comes to the fair courtesy of Indianapolis gallery Long-Sharp Gallery.

While Warhol's portraits of celebrities, models, and society women are among his most well-known, the Mahl portrait has never been displayed as it was sold directly to the subject.

Masterpiece London, a high-end art and antiques fair offering an eclectic mix of paintings, design, furniture, and jewelry, kicked off its fifth edition with an exclusive preview on Wednesday, June 25 at the Royal Hospital Chelsea. The fair, which is located near London’s posh Chelsea neighborhood, got off to a strong start thanks to impressive sales and record attendance. Noteworthy visitors included collector Charles Saatchi, interior designers Ellie Cullman and Scott Snyder, fashion designers Zandra Rhodes and Tom Ford, and a number of museum leaders such as Jeffrey Munger, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Curator of European Porcelain, and Stephen Harrison, the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Curator of Decorative Art and Design.

A positive tone was set early on when Symbolic and Chase (London) sold a 1912 Cartier Corsage for more than $20 million. Other sales highlights during the preview included a pair of chinoiserie cabinets by Vile and Cobb sold by Apter Fredericks (London) to an American collector for a seven figure sum; a portrait of the Countess of Craven sold by Elle Shushan (Philadelphia) to English actress Diana Rigg; and Lynn Chadwick’s “Back to Venice” sculpture that was sold by Osborne Samuel (London) for £250,000. Strong sales are expected to continue through the weekend.

A painting by renowned Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) will be the highlight of Masterpiece London, which takes place at the Royal Hospital Chelsea from June 27 through July 3, 2013. Now in its fourth year, the show presents the finest art, antiques, and design from across the globe.

While works ranging from furniture, jewelry, and books to classic cars, watches, and whiskey will be offered, there is one particular artwork generating tons of pre-show buzz. Geoffrey Diner, a Washington, D.C.-based art dealer, will present Roy Lichtenstein’s Puzzle Portrait (1978), which has not been seen in public in 30 years and has never appeared at auction. Similar paintings are part of the Guggenheim Museum’s and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collections in New York. Puzzle Portrait is expected to garner around $10 million.    

Diner has revealed little about the painting’s provenance other than the fact that it was sold in 1984 to “a prominent American collection.” Diner purchased the painting privately last year and the change of ownership still has not been registered in the Lichtenstein Foundation archives. The identity of the previous owners will be revealed to the buyer upon acquisition of the painting. The future buyer will also be given the personal correspondence between them and the artist from the original transaction.

2nd Annual Naples Art, Antique & Fine Jewelry Show
February 8–11, 2013; Preview: February 7, 2013
Naples Exhibition Center, 100 Goodlette Road
South Naples, Florida 34102

10th Anniversary Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show
February 16–19, 2013; Preview: February 15, 2013
Palm Beach Country Convention Center, 650 Okeechobee Blvd.
West Palm Beach, Florida 33401

After its successful debut in 2012, The Palm Beach Show Group (PBSG) is proud to announce that the Naples Art, Antique & Jewelry Show will be held this year from February 8th to the 11th. More than 75 high-caliber dealers will be exhibiting. As an indicator of how strong the inaugural show was, the majority of the 2012 participating dealers signed up again for 2013.

Scott Diament, President and CEO of the PBSG remarked, “The second annual Naples Show will again provide exhibitors with the unique opportunity to not only meet sophisticated and educated clientele from Florida’s Paradise Coast, but also from the Midwest region, an area from which many attendees travel during this peak season.” Show visitors will gain access to major works of art, antique and estate jewelry, furniture, porcelain, Asian antiquities, American and European silver, glass, textiles, sculpture, contemporary art and many more of the world’s most beautiful collections.

The show's location is ideal for collectors and decorators alike, located just steps from Fifth Avenue, Naples’ world-renowned shopping, dining and entertainment district, and its cultural attractions including museums, theaters, and art galleries.

On President’s Day Weekend, following just four days after the Naples Show, the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show is celebrating its 10th anniversary. With the addition of so many top painting dealers this year, it has become the preeminent show for American and European art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the art and antiques industry, this is an annual must-attend event and a hallmark in Palm Beach. Many exhibitors, including Peter Finer (the world’s leading specialist in antique arms and armour and new to the show this year) also exhibit at other top-notch shows such as TEFAF Maastricht, The Winter Antiques Show, Masterpiece London and The American Art Fair.

The Palm Beach Show was so successful last year that over 50 dealers were waitlisted for this year's show since the demand to exhibit exceeded capacity, an exceedingly rare situation in this volatile economic climate.

“Our Naples Show is the perfect complement to our Palm Beach Show,” adds Diament. “We are now providing our exhibitors with tremendous back-to-back exposure to the most affluent collectors from the Northeast, who choose to winter in Southeast Florida, and the most affluent collectors from the Midwest, who choose to spend their winters on the West Coast of Florida. Thousands of patrons—from private collectors to museums curators to investors—are anticipated to attend.

“IT IS a phoenix that rose out of the ashes of Grosvenor House,” says Geoffrey Munn, managing director of Wartski, a London jeweller. He is talking about the Masterpiece fair, which has just finished its second year alongside the river Thames. When Grosvenor, the grande dame of London’s annual art and antiques fairs, shut down in 2009, Masterpiece was one of two new fairs to have emerged, along with Brian and Anna Haughton’s Art Antiques London, which took place in Kensington Gardens in early June. After maiden voyages last year, both improved in 2011.
 
Art Antiques London is pitched to mid-range collectors with an emphasis on exceptional ceramics. Masterpiece is a bigger and glitzier bird, which aims to exhibit the best of the best. A visitor to this more ambitious fair, which closed on July 5th, could have taken home some 18th-century scenic wallpaper (at Carolle Thibaut-Pomerantz); a sleekly sensual, modern white sofa (Ciancimino); a series of four Commedia dell’Arte paintings by Giandomenico Tiepolo (Dickinson); a sapphire blue Rolls-Royce (pictured); or a Spitfire plane. The stands are generously proportioned, the colours soothingly neutral and the aisles thickly carpeted. For the peckish, there were outposts of the fashionable Le Caprice and Harry’s Bar.

The fair essentially felt like a shopping mall in an absurdly smart hotel, which helped to make the targeted demographic feel right at home. Though some serious art collectors are not thrilled with the inclusion of luxury goods, this mix is likely to continue. The unique blue Rolls-Royce Phantom, complete with an Asprey jewellery box fitted in its glove compartment, sold “in the region of £400,000” ($640,000). JAR Parfums, an exclusive Parisian appointment-only jewellery designer and perfumier, made a rare appearance to launch an “affordable” line of bold, limited-edition earrings inspired by flowers and fans. Priced from €1,000 to €3,800, they flew out of the stall, designed to look just like the Paris boutique.
    
Thomas Woodham-Smith, a former managing director of Mallet, an English and Continental furniture specialist (a veteran of Grosvenor and now Masterpiece), is one of the founders of this new fair. He still looks surprised as he reports that last year, at the post-fair meeting with dealers, he was greeted with applause. Many were thrilled with the fair’s new look and the clients they’d met. In 2010 there were fewer than 120 exhibitors; this year 300 dealers reportedly signed on to the waiting list, and some 150 took part.