Fairs and Markets

Old Master paintings rarely take centre stage over Modern, Impressionist or Contemporary art these days. Yet this most traditional of collecting disciplines remains the soul of TEFAF Maastricht, the umbilical cord to its genesis as the Pictura fair.

A series of three events aimed at collectors and art enthusiasts in the run up to TEFAF Maastricht (March 13-22) launches next week in London to promote the fair.

Masterpiece London 2015 have signed Bond Street dealership Richard Green – a significant boost to this year’s event.

David and Lee Ann Lester have cancelled their American International Fine Art Fair in Palm Beach, Florida at the last moment, citing changing market forces.

Charles ninth Duke of Wellington will appear with Dame Rosalind Savill in this year’s Face to Face conversation at Anna and Brian Haughton’s Art Antiques London fair in Kensington Gardens in June.

After 17 years as managing director of TEFAF Maastricht, Paul Hustinx will step down shortly after this year’s fair to be replaced by new chief executive officer Patrick van Maris.

Now celebrating 60 years as a Belgian art and antiques fair, the Brussels Art Fair (BRAFA) obviously has staying power and many exhibitors make the return year on year to stand here. ATG’s Anne Crane asked one longstanding exhibitor, Francis Maere of Francis Maere Fine Arts from Brussels, why the event ticks all the boxes for him.

The list of five successful applicants for the 2015 TEFAF Maastricht ‘Showcase’ has been announced and, while it includes three Parisian galleries, unusually this year’s selection does not include any British dealers.

The French National Antique Dealers’ Association (Syndicat National des Antiquaires), organisers of the long-running Paris ‘Biennale des Antiquaires’, have decided to mount an additional new annual fair for the French capital – the first to be held next spring.

Bonhams will their launch their sales of Modern and Contemporary Art from Asia in Hong Kong on March 15 during the ‘Art Basel Hong Kong’ week.

Visitors to ‘TEFAF Maastricht’ 2015 will be greeted by a revamped entrance to the fair alongside a new ‘curated space’ of work by post-Modern and contemporary artists to tie in with the ‘TEFAF Modern section’.

Visitors admire a stand at the 10th edition of Fine Art Asia in Hong Kong, staged from October 4-7 in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, against a backdrop of the pro-democracy protests in the city.

The Contemporary art auctions staged during London’s Frieze week showed no signs of letting up as the bidding took little account of the stockmarkets that were nosediving at the same time.

With some ten fairs, ten auctions and countless exhibitions, the jam-packed calendar of London’s Frieze week was as hectic as ever this year, all centred on the main event – the Frieze Art Fair staged in a vast marquee in Regents Park from October 15-18.

Mallett’s first major outing following the announcement of the Stanley Gibbons deal will be at Brian and Anna Haughton’s 26th International Fine Art & Antiques Show in New York from October 17-23.

Frieze Masters (October’s 15-19) have unveiled this year’s Talks programme

The founders of Frieze, Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover, are to step down as directors of the contemporary fairs Frieze London and Frieze New York to “focus on developing new projects for the organisation”.

Queues across Berkeley Square on the opening night augured well for the 2014 LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair, and there was certainly a buzz inside the giant marquee, along with evidence of early sales among the 100-plus dealers standing there.

The First World War centenary has prompted numerous related exhibitions which have rather dominated the calendar this year as you might expect.

In April 2013, the Nantgarw China Works Trust took on the lease of the site of the Nantgarw pottery where porcelain was produced under the aegis of William Billingsley between 1813-14 and again from 1817-19.