Exhibitions

“Mr Woilde, we ’ave come for tew take yew Where felons and criminals dwell: We must ask yew tew leave with us quoietly For this is the Cadogan Hotel.” These lines by John Betjeman form part of a poem that marks one of the most notorious incidents in late Victorian society – The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel.

Many Antiques Trade Gazette readers will be familiar with the name Francis Raeymaekers of ADC Heritage from his days as a dealer in antique silver. After a sojourn in New York, he is back in London with a new venture.

BATTERSEA dealer Robert Young, the country’s only specialist in English and European folk art, holds his fourth annual Exhibition of Antique Folk Art from May 16 to 24 at his showrooms at 68 Battersea Bridge Road, London SW11.

MAHOGANY is synonymous with the finest 18th century English furniture and its supreme place in English furniture history is celebrated from April 8 to 25 with a selling exhibition, Magnificent Mahogany – Two Centuries of English Furniture, at Mayfair’s Windsor House Antiques.

COLLECT is the simple name of a new annual event to be launched at the V&A in London in February next year. The Crafts Council say it will be the premier showcase for unique and limited edition contemporary objects.

Caughley Porcelain has been on the up recently, gaining in followers and in value. Enthusiasts for this Shropshire factory will doubtless want to make their way to Stockspring Antiques next month for what looks to be an interesting loan exhibition under the title Paul Sandby and Caughley Porcelain.

KENSINGTON-based English porcelain specialist Simon Spero is known internationally for the selling exhibitions at his gallery at 109 Kensington Church Street, London W8, and this month he holds one with a guaranteed appeal.

FOR nigh on a decade ceramics dealer Andrew Dando’s Spring exhibition, Animal Dando & Friends, has been a West Country institution, but since the firm moved from their long-time premises in Bath to Wiltshire last September many customers wondered if the show would go on.

Newly-formed organisers Antiques Fair Management, a division of Shropshire-based Wellington Market Company, have acquired a series of one-day Sunday fairs at Birmingham’s National Motorcycle Museum.

NEW YORK specialist dealers in movie posters Posteritati hold some beguiling selling shows, but they look like being onto an international winner with their current one – French Gangsters & The New Wave – which runs at their gallery at 239 Centre Street until March 4.

MAYFAIR’S only specialist in tribal art, the Gordon Reece Gallery, hold an exhibition Gabbehs: an idiosyncratic art form from February 21 to March 29.

A selection from one of the least known public collections in the country is going on exhibition in London for the first time. Eighty of the best pieces from the birthplace museum, Gainsborough’s House in Sudbury, are being lent to the art dealers, Agnew’s in London.

Rubens’ Massacre of the Innocents is to go on public display at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Lord Thomson of Fleet, who set a record for an Old Master painting at auction when he paid £45m for the work at Sotheby’s in London in July, announced that the painting would join nearly 2000 other works in his collection at the gallery after it completes a $315m renovation and expansion.

There is still plenty of time to catch the Christmas show at the Fine Art Society, 148 New Bond St., who inform us that the exhibition in fact runs until December 21st and not the 11th as first reported in last month’s Decoration and Design.

SHOWING until November 23 at Gary Grant’s gallery at 18 Arlington Way, London EC1, near Sadlers Wells, is a selling exhibition Post-war patterned pots which offers 110 pieces highlighting innovative designs on mid-20th century ceramics.

LONDON: DESIGNERS of today for tomorrow is how the Fine Art Society describe their annual Christmas show which will be held at their extensive galleries at 148 New Bond Street, London W1 from November 30 to December 11.

Iron and clay in a white heat fusion as Philp brothers go Dutch with Spronken: In a new departure, London art dealer Richard Philp turns up the heat later this month and goes completely Contemporary.

GREATLY influenced by the opening up of Japan to Western trade and acknowledged as the prelude to Art Nouveau, the Aesthetic Movement has an assured place in the annals of decoration and design in the second half of the 19th century.

“Marvellously dotty” was how Peyton Skipwith of The Fine Art Society chose to describe this 14 by 12in (36 x 30cm) oil on panel by Rex Whistler (1905-1944). Entitled Miss Muffet, the panel depicts the moment when, sat upon her tuffet eating her curds and wey, a spider sits down beside the well-known nursery rhyme character.

ST James’s dealer John Bly is the latest of an increasing number establishing a presence in the United States. He starts from December 10 to 14 with a selling exhibition with lectures, for which he will take over The Versailles Suite at New York’s famous Carlyle Hotel.