Events and conferences

The student section of the British Antique Furniture Restorers’ Association will hold their annual conference at Oxford and Cherwell College, Oxpens Road, Oxford on March 14.

The Victoria and Albert Museum will open a new Portrait Miniatures Gallery on March 2.

NOW a permanent fixture on the capital’s art scene, the seventh annual Art on Paper Fair will be held from February 3 to 6 at the Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7. It will be opened at noon on the 3rd by one of last year’s more colourful characters, Spectator editor, and lapsed Tory shadow spokesman for the Arts, Boris Johnson.

LAUNCHED with a deal of success last year, when it attracted 10,000 visitors, COLLECT 2005 will be held at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum from January 12 to 17.

LAST year Fran Foster launched her new event, the National Fine Art & Antiques Fair, at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre and, from January 19 to 23, it returns to the Forum, which is arguably the most popular of the NEC’s many halls for antiques fixtures.

THE last of the four annual selling shows of Japanese woodblock prints at The Japanese Gallery, 66D Kensington Church Street, London W8, is Cats, Birds and Flowers which opened earlier this month and continues until February 28, 2005.

“Business has been good, but to achieve this I have had to work extremely hard.” This is how Chris Beetles summed up 2004 and, having already taken over £500,000 in sales from his renowned annual exhibition of British illustrators, he is ending the year on a bullish note.

Hosted by ATG at the City Flogger in the City of London, the event brought together 20 teams from all areas of the art and antiques world for a light-hearted charity event which nevertheless caused some serious head-scratching.

SOUTHAMPTON Institute has two reasons to celebrate this week: its newly adopted status as a university college, granted on November 1, and the awarding of a number of prizes to its fine arts valuation students.

THE international Asian art community descended on London from November 4-12 to battle for the best quality Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian material the major houses and dealers could muster during Asian Art in London.

THE winners of the Asian Art in London Outstanding Work of Art Awards, sponsored by the Antiques Trade Gazette, were announced last week.

FOR the first time conservation specialists will participate in the Dorking Street Festival.

SOME of the 16 shows which comprise the traditional autumn season of selling exhibitions held by the Cotswold Antiques Dealers’ Association have already been covered in this column but here are a few more to whet the appetite.

BUSINESS could not be better for Simon Spero, the Kensington Church Street, London W8 18th century porcelain specialist who opened his annual exhibition on Tuesday last week (October 5) at noon.

THREE leading international dealers in antique needlework are getting together in New York later this month for a special selling exhibition – The Admirable Art of the Needle: Samplers & Embroideries 1650-1850.

THERE is still a chance to book tickets for the RICS conference in Leeds from October 15-17.

NOW an autumn institution in Kensington, two of the London borough’s top ceramics specialists hold their concurrent annual selling exhibitions from October 5 to 16. Both have something to celebrate.

AT a time when many dealers are scaling down and reducing costs, Burford sporting antiques specialist, Manfred Schotten, is opening his new trade warehouse to coincide with his Old Sport. Here's Sport Indeed exhibition as part of the CADA autumn selling exhibition which runs from October 9-23.

FURTHER to the footballing prowess of dealers and auctioneers (see last week’s Antiques Trade Gazette), Christie’s have announced two more sporting successes.

WITH the autumn season well underway, it’s good to see a number of dealers promoting business with selling exhibitions which, apart from anything else, present a confident looking trade to the world. Second generation West Sussex furniture dealer Frank Wilson, owner of Wilsons Antiques, has held such an exhibition in Worthing every year since the early 1990s and this autumn’s event will run from September 28 to October 2 at his showrooms at 45-47 New Broadway, Tarring Road.