UK

London has shed its reputation as the world’s only major art market centre without a major contemporary fair with the inaugural Frieze Art Fair in Regent’s Park.

Sad news. The drunken rats and the two-faced lamb have finally parted company.

RUNNING at the racetrack since 1988, Caroline Penman’s Chester Antiques & Fine Art Show is a favourite with both local collectors and the 60 or so dealers who regularly exhibit. It will be held, as usual, at the County Grandstand, Chester Racecourse from October 23 to 25 and, also as usual at this event, most stock will be pre-1920.

MORE worthwhile activity from our busy and productive local dealers’ associations which have surely proved their worth now, even to traditionally independent sceptics. As the stalwarts of the Cotswolds Antique Dealers’ Association wrap up their series of exhibitions, the equally industrious members of the Thames Valley Antique Dealers’ Association prepare for their autumn fair.

Exceptional quality pictures with truly international appeal from long-standing private collections have become an all-too-rare sight in the provinces, but on October 3, thanks to significant consignments from no fewer than three deceased estates, Mallams Oxford (15% buyer’s premium) were able to offer at least half a dozen lots that wouldn’t have looked out of place at any of the world’s most expensive art fairs.

CLOSING this Saturday (October 18) and not to be missed, is an exhibition of photographs by Michael Cooper at the Atlas Gallery, 49 Dorset Street, London W1. One of the great archives of 1960s photography, this show has prompted the Independent on Sunday to brand the snapper as “The Swinging Sixties’ poet of the lens”. Lennon, Magritte, Warhol, Burroughs, the Rolling Stones, Twiggy, and Hockney are all featured among the 37 photos priced from £800 to £6000.

While the original Friendly Society was a successful London fire insurance association, the name was adopted throughout 18th and 19th century Britain to describe every kind of mutual aid organisation.

WITH a £120,000 total from some 500 lots catering for most areas of antiques, the September 18 sale held by Douglas Ross (15% buyer’s premium) at Woburn was a sound, if unspectacular, start to the autumn season for the Bedfordshire rooms.

And now for something completely different...A high-rise flat on the outskirts of Glasgow is not the place one would expect to find works of art by the celebrated firm of Fabergé but that was the origin of the finely crafted photograph frame, right, offered on September 26 by Glasgow auctioneers McTears (15% buyer’s premium).

High quality mahogany carcase furniture continues to transcend any malaise experienced at other levels of the furniture market. The final lot of a small but nicely formed sale conducted by Finan & Co. at the Old Ship Hotel in Mere, Wiltshire on October 4 was this fretwork and blind fret decorated Chippendale-style and period mahogany library bookcase.

First introduced c.1809, the ‘Caramanian’ series represent one of Spode’s most popular early 19th century pattern ranges.

THE Wallace Collection have gone into partnership with French art training provider IESA to develop a postgraduate diploma in the History and Business of Art and Collecting.

THE Portobello Management Committee have reached an agreement with Kensington and Chelsea council to safeguard the character and traditions of London’s best-known antiques thoroughfare.

AMONG the London salerooms offering a good selection of antique glasswares in the last fortnight, Christie’s South Kensington had a mixed-owner 280-lot selection of British and Continental glass to offer as part of their monthly ‘At Home’ series.

CHIPPING Norton, Oxfordshire dealers Jane and Keith Riley, who trade as Key Antiques at 11 Horsefair, go back to their roots for their contribution to the Cotswolds Antique Dealers’ Association’s series of selling exhibitions.

ONE never associates the Chelsea Antiques Fair with thronged aisles and a rush of business, but after more than half a century it must be doing a lot right and the 97th staging from September 17 to 22 at the Old Town Hall in the King’s Road, SW3, did not disappoint most of the 35 exhibitors.

According to Themes & Variations, the West London dealers in 20th century decorative arts and contemporary design, for the past three decades minimalism has developed alongside a taste for baroque extravagance, but without converging.

September was football time for two of the London rooms, Sotheby’s Olympia (20/10% buyer’s premium) fielded a 437-lot sale on September 11 and Christie’s South Kensington (17.5/10% buyer’s premium), who followed on two weeks later with their 302-lot offering on September 23.

WHEN it comes to the traditional English country house nothing is more redolent of the look of the Victorian and Edwardian periods than the old tack and gun rooms of the country lodge, replete with saddles, whips, boots and mounted trophies such as perch and stag.

What a novel idea Kent dealer Neville Pundole has come up with for his current exhibition at the Neville Pundole Gallery, The Friary, Canterbury.