Over the last decade the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make Singapore a “Global arts city” by 2015. One recent high profile effort is seen in Art Stage Singapore, the second edition of the city-state’s contemporary art fair boasting 130 galleries from 18 countries, which ended its four-day run yesterday (January 15).

But first, some facts and figures for why Singapore’s central planners want a piece of the arts pie. According to The Global Art Market in 2010, Crisis and Recovery by arts economist Dr. Clare McAndrew (the 2011 edition will be released in March at TEFAF Maastrict) the global market for art and antiques bounced back far stronger than equities in 2010, as a whole rising by 52% and reaching a total of €43 billion; the most significant development in recent years has been the phenomenal growth of the art market in China, which nearly doubled in value since 2009, and now represents 23% of the market compared to 34% in the U.S. (China has consistently gained share since 2006: its auction sales have increased nearly nine times in six years, with 2010 representing by far the largest rise to just under €6 billion). As Sotheby’s sales for the first half of last year were up 55% to $3.4 billion, a new all-time high for consolidated sales for the first half of a year, and arch rival Christie’s also reported stellar sales of $3.2 billion (read all about it: www.artnet.com/magazineus/news/artmarketwatch/sothebys-bests-christies-8-5-11.asp), and as the fall auctions from London to New York to Hong Kong saw numerous records, there’s no reason to conclude the final 2011 figures will be any less jaw-dropping (especially when compared to equity markets that have yet to top a two-year trading range).

Additionally, the Asia-Pacific region now has more millionaires than Europe, and is closing in on the U.S. (Asia: 3.3 millionaires; Europe: 3.1 millionaires; U.S. 3.4 millionaires), and given the propensity for, er, financial discretion in China and several countries in Southeast Asia, the figures for Asia are conservative); private museums throughout Asia are mushrooming, as are the number of high profile art collectors.

So then, it’s not rocket science to deduce why those at the helm of Singapore, Inc. crave culture. First, it’s a simple equation: art  equals money. Second, it’s a growth business (apparently, lately, very high growth). Third, there’s a lot of new money in Asia, much of it hungry for art, and even more of it potentially able to develop an arts appetite, and that money is growing faster than it is in the West. And then there’s the catalog of ancillary benefits: prestige, tourism, jobs, quality of life, plus art as a catalyst for creativity across disciplines and industries.

To foster Singapore as a cultural hub, the government has implemented numerous tax incentives—among them tax-free, state-of-the-art storage and display facilities the size of six football fields (and this is but stage one; Christie’s is reportedly one of the principal tenants. The city-state is also rapidly building new cultural institutions, such as a national art gallery comprised of the former city hall and supreme court, scheduled to open in 2013.

Such efforts should be compared with those of Hong Kong, which continues to wear Asia’s art marketplace crown and hardly sitting still. After New York and London, the former crown colony is the world’s third largest auction market (figures in The Global Art Market in 2010, Crisis and Recovery combine mainland China and Hong Kong). The city is also in the midst of a massive $2.1 billion West Kowloon Cultural District, which includes a contemporary museum called M+ (the first phase is scheduled to open in 2016), the renovation of the Central Police Station heritage site to an exhibition venue (scheduled to open 2014) and the opening of the Asia Society’s new premises in Hong Kong early this year. The current breadth of the city’s non-commercial arts scene is also impressive, and is illustrated by the exhibitions and projects organized by numerous organizations, Para/Site Art Space, Asia Art Archive and Fotan Open Studios among them.

On the commercial side, Western galleries are flocking to Hong Kong, among them hundred-pound gorillas such as Gagosian, which opened last year, and White Cube, scheduled to open this spring—an influx which is catalyzing the opening of more Asian galleries, particularly from China. A sign of boom times, a 60% stake in Asian Art Fairs Ltd., the owners the eleven-year-old Hong Kong International Art Fair, ART HK, was purchased by MCH Swiss Exhibition Group, the owners of the Art Basel brand (at the time, Art Basel directors Annette Schonholze and Marc Spiegler stated, “the mid-term goal is to convert ART HK to the Art Basel brand as the third platform for our leading international art shows”). With 260 galleries from 38 countries, ART HK 11, held last May, saw 63,511 visitors, an increase of 37.7% from the previous year.

If Singapore’s goal were simply to become Asia’s principal art market, it might well seem a Sisyphean attempt. But its aim is likely more tiered and long-range, as well as strategic. Lorenzo Rudolf (left), the veteran art-fair organizer and arts world heavyweight, was the director of Art Basel from 1991-2000, and founded Art Basel Miami Beach in 2002 and Shanghai’s ShContemporary in 2007. He is currently the director of Art Stage Singapore. In the January issue of Art + Auction (which was published online January 13), he participated in a Q&A, with several of answers pertaining directly to Singapore’s leaders’ artful aspirations.

Rudolph’s response comparing Singapore and Hong Kong as art centers? “It’s no coincidence that these two cities are the financial centers of Asia … Singapore, like Switzerland, is a hub for private wealth management, a place people can bring their money and art in security. In both places, the state is also investing a lot in culture. Singapore understands that Asia needs a place for exchange, for dialogue. It has developed an artist-in-residence program flanked by a Kunstahalle to bring together emerging artists from all over Asia. The bigger market will be in Hong Kong. But in terms of dialogue, exchanges, and new formats, Singapore will be the center.”

Rudolph, and by extension Singapore, is thus focusing on the city-state as a platform for pan-Asian art (as opposed to strictly Chinese): “The scene here [in Asia] is still very fragmented: I don’t see many Indians going to China or Japanese going to Indonesia … Singapore is too small to have its own art scene, but it’s at the crossroads of China, India, and Southeast Asia. Those are the three strongest and fastest-growing economies and art markets in Asia.” (Rudolf’s full Q&A.)

It’s notable that Rudolph is branding Art Stage Singapore “The Asian Art Fair.” It’s also significant that this year’s fair produced a campaign with the theme and tagline “We Are Asia,” with press materials explaining that “The fair has taken the role of Asian art advocate by elevating them to a level of international importance, and by positioning them as strong and competitive players in the global market.” The next three to five years will show if the strategy works.

Nowhere perhaps better illustrates Singapore’s big money, SuperSized, multi-pronged approach than Marina Bay, a massive land-reclamation project born in the 1970s and in overdrive for the last decade. Marina Bay itself is a huge freshwater reservoir fed by the Singapore River. Ringing it as an ever-growing lifestyle center that now includes numerous architecturally significant hotels, theaters, casino and convention center (the home of Art Stage Singapore), the world’s largest floating stadium, a residential and business tower component that will eventually double the size of Singapore’s existing financial district (making it equivalent to Hong Kong’s Central business district), and to underscore Singapore’s “Garden City” sobriquet,

Gardens by the Bay, a monumental series of three waterfront gardens spanning 101 hectares that combines horticulture with eye-popping architecture (the largest of the three, the 54-hectare Bay South garden, is set to open this June).

Part II of this story: An art and design walk around Marina Bay.

Another description? A boy’s Erector Set-Matchbox car-train set-Fritz Lang fantasy on steroids executed with a Daddy Warbucks budget and an army of assistants. A New Yorker’s likely assessment? Utopia-dystopia, nobody walks in L.A.!

A view from above (with the artist standing far left):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHWukSSdc1E

From Floor level:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpaeGPnTRZg

Hitting the road: The piece’s armature—steel beams forming a grid interwoven with a system of 18 roadways, among them a six-lane freeway, train tracks and hundreds of buildings (which, Burden clarifies, are not modeled after any specific structures, their purpose only to reflect eclecticism and modernity).

Revving up: 1,100 miniature cars vroom through the city at 240 “scale miles per hour” (hence Burden’s quip to think of Metropolis II whilst idling in gridlock). The piece, situated on the ground floor of the BCAM building, is on long-term loan from LACMA trustee and billionaire Nicholas Berggruen (last week The Art Newspaper reported that his plans to build a museum in Berlin appear to be in hold, and that he currently favors long-terms loans to LACMA. Our links aren’t currently working but here’s the address: www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Berggruen+builds+collection+for+Los+Angeles/25444).

Born in 1946, Burden is a SoCal arts big gun. He has been since the early 1970s when his ephemeral-performance-conceptual pieces captured the art world’s spotlight. His efforts cannot be faulted for failing to explore extremes—both in the attempt to attract notoriety and in corporal pain. This is the artist who had himself shot (Shoot, 1971), locked up (Five Day Locker Piece, 1971), electrocuted (Doorway to Heaven, 1973), and cut (Through the Night Softly, 1973), drowned (Velvet Water, 1974). His Urban Light installation of vintage streetlights at LACMA, facing Wilshire Boulevard, is a people pleaser on the scale that museum and county officials take note of. Metropolis II will likely do the same for the young, the young at heart, and visitors wishing to distract the kids with a dream (or Blade Runner-ish nightmare) of tomorrow.

So we’re left with is a roster of contemporary art fairs far and wide. There’s the 11th Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art (September 15-December 31); the 4th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (September 23-October 30), the 5th edition of SH Contemporary, China’s largest art fair (September 7-10), the 15th Shanghai Art Fair (September 14-18, which this year had its first-ever pavilion devoted to North American galleries—ca-ching!), the 12th Istanbul Biennial (September 17-November 13), as well as the launch of Art Beat Istanbul, September 14-18); the launch edition of (e)merge art fair (September 22-25), a scrapper newcomer in Washington, D.C; New York’s fall edition of the Affordable Art Fair (September 21-25), the second edition of the Marrakech Art Fair (September 30-October 3).

Might this attenuation mean a contemporary market in overdrive? Not my bailiwick, but Anders Petterson weighs in with “Is Art Still a Safe Bet for Investors?” in The Art Newspaper, and Andrew Russeth weighs in “Welcome to Art Market Boom 2.0” in The New York Observer.

But in terms of decorative arts succor this month, that must be sought in the salerooms of auction houses. Two single-owner sales (noted below) raise my paddle in particularly.

September 13-14-15: The Cowdray Sale: Works of Art from Cowdray Park and Dunecht House, At Cowdray Park, West Sussex, U.K.

September 15, Living Contemporary, Wright auctions, Chicago.

September 16-October 30: Beyond Limits, Chatsworth, U.K.

September 19-20-21: Palais Abbatial de Royaumont-Exposition au Palais Abbatial de Royaumont, Christie’s Paris. Auction results.

Ever wonder what the Louis XVII style would be like, at least architecturally? Perhaps it would be embodied by the Palais Abbatial de Royaumont, or the Abbey Palace of Royaumont. So posited the late, great tastemaker and interior designer Emilio Terry, who revered the elegantly paired-down palace, calling it the world’s best example of “Louis XVII,” the eastethic direction he thought France would have taken had it not been for that social, political and cultural speed bump also known as the French Revolution (which, among many things, yielded the Empire style … merci Napoleon).

Designed for Louis XVI’s chaplain, the Abbot of Balivière in the last decade of that ill-fated king’s reign, the architect was Louis Le Masson, a protégé of the renowned neo-classicist architect Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. Le Masson’s design draws directly from the work of the seminal Italian 16th-century neo-classicist architect Andrea Palladio, specifically his Villa Rotunda.

Following the Revolution the property passed to a series of owners, until, in 1923, it was bought by the Baron and Baroness Fould-Springer, who formed the nucleus and bulk of the collection on the Christie’s block.

Now listen up. Why single-owner sales are so fascinating is they’re not just about the stuff, nor are they just about a single person’s or family’s perspective. They’re also about history, gossip, cultural values, money (macro economics and personal finances), as well as imagination.

Let’s break down the Fould-Springers. The Foulds were one of 19th-century France’s great industrial and financial dynasties (Achille Fould was Napoleon III’s Minister of Finance). The Springers were equally powerful Austrian industrialists and financiers (they “created” the French yeast industry in 1872, but one example of how their interests were trans-continental).

The Fould-Springers made the palace their primary residence (then, as Nathaniel de Rothschild notes in the catalog, one could zip quickly into Paris within 45 minutes, the roads free of le gridlock), and decorated primarily with neo-classical pieces. Le tout Paris came to their palatial parties—Proust among them. During World War II, the property remained unmolested and German-free, courtesy of one of the Fould-Springer’s sons-in-law, a Spaniard who flew that neutral country’s flag over the estate.

Following the War, the Palais entered a quieter time, lived in primarily by the aging Baroness and her son. Eventually it passed to grandson Nathaniel de Rothschild (yes, another storied name in industry and finance), who is the discreet seller.

The collection’s highlights include both Louis XVI and Empire pieces. Among the most high profile are a c. 1800 table attributed to famed bronzier Pierre-Philippe Thomire, with rails and feet cast completely in bronze and in the Egyptian style, and a Louis XVI cabinet reusing earlier Boulle marquetry panels and richly decorated with ormolu mounts by Parisian cabinet maker Joseph Baumhauer.

Lovely lovelies to be sure. But equally beautiful (and edifying) are the in situ photographs of the pieces in the palace—which make the catalog a keeper for the bookshelf. Inspiring, to say the least.

September 22: 500 Years Decorative Arts Europe, Christie’s London.

September 27: Design, Phillips de Pury, London. The auction house claims the sale will offer the most important group of Modernist ceramics ever to appear at auction.

September 28: The Contents of the St. Lucian Property of Lord Glenconner, Bonhams, London. Auction results.

Completely different in tone and taste from the Fould-Springer Collection is that of Lord Glenconner, the bon vivant and businessman who put Mustique on the Jet Set map and had famously terrific parties attended by bosom buds such as Princess Margaret, Mick Jagger, Carolina Herrera, and, well, the list goes on and on.

For much of his life, which spanned well over seven decades (1926-2010), the 3rd Baron Glenconner (born the Honorable Colin Tennant) collected. What he collected, however, varied greatly. He was a very early admirer of painter Lucien Freund, at one point owning 15 of his works (one a portrait of himself). He adored Scottish pottery, building a superlative collection of Wemyss (he also collected Chinese porcelain). Same for Indian furniture and jewelry. Perhaps the through line of all his various collections was he bought them when they were not in fashion.

Writer Nicholas Courtney (who has a biography on Lord Glenconner coming out next year) explains in the catalog’s introduction that “In all, Colin built three remarkable houses. He began with a house in Tite Street in London that was dubbed the most important to be build in the 1960s. Oliver Messel, originally known for his theater sets, designed his ‘Indian’ palace in Mustique that gave ample scope to display his Indian treasures, such as a Mogul temple in the grounds, and a silver bed. For Beau House in St. Lucia, which he completed for his eightieth birthday party, he had bought a complete monastery in Gujarat and built the house of Barbados coral blocks around the carved wooden pillars, doors, window surrounds and shutters.”

Pieces from his previous residences were also brought to Beau House (including incredible sconces by French designer Janine Janet)—the contents of which comprise this sale. The catalog yields the same kind of nostalgic pleasure that photographer Slim Aarons captured in his snaps of the privileged, pedigreed and powerful.

September 28: Important American Furniture, Folk Art & Decorative Arts, Christie’s New York.

September 29: Property from the Collection of Edward P. Evans, Sotheby’s New York.

September 30: Important Mobilier, Sculptures et Objets d’Art, Sotheby’s Paris.

If you were to try and trace the lifeline of the American prep, Brooks Brothers might be your Adam (of “and Eve” fame).  Although the company’s current offerings greatly differ from the time when the sons of Henry Sands Brooks took over the company in the mid-1800s, it remains an American institution; clothing some of the best and brightest this country has had to offer.

For decades, The Ivy League and the Golden Fleece symbol were intimately entangled.  When you wanted great menswear in New York, you’d visit the Brooks Brothers flagship store; and when “prep” became a dirty word, Brooks Brothers stuck to their laurels.

Still, I’ve only recently found myself buying Brooks Brothers.  My prior experiences with the brand weren’t the greatest: my mother forcing me to shop there for my school clothes, my Nana forcing me to wear my dead grandfather’s polo shirts.  For more than a decade, I thought of Brooks Brothers the same way I thought of brands like The Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch—companies that had their moments, but had since then shit the bed, making crap for people uninterested in quality.

I was wrong.  I made the mistake of looking at Brooks Brothers’ style and tradition and I thought it was boring.  While affordable American menswear drifted aimlessly in a sea of polyester and sagging jeans, Brooks Brothers played anchor to ships like Ralph Lauren and J. Crew.  The company, founded in 1818, is the conscience of American menswear.  Whether we acknowledge it doesn’t matter.

While that’s all well and good, Brooks Brothers’ adherence to certain values doesn’t necessarily keep the money rolling in.  Over the last two decades, several companies have incorporated the best parts of the Brooks Brothers brand into their catalogues, introducing them to unlikely customers like trendy Williamsburg types and hip-hop stars.  Meanwhile, Brooks Brothers caters mostly to country clubbers and yacht owners, nearly rendering the company irrelevant to consumers under 40; however, they have only recently taken steps to bridge this gap.  In 2007, Brooks Brothers introduced the Black Fleece line, a hand-stitched collection of slimmer, shorter and more modern looks; living somewhere between Gay Talese and 1960′s dandy.  Now Brooks Brothers has announced the release of a line bearing the school colors and insignias of fifteen esteemed American colleges, including Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Georgetown, Notre Dame and Vanderbilt.

These guys are upping their game.  According to ESPN, there are about 172 million college sports fans in the U.S. About 20 percent of them earn more than $100,000 a year; 12 percent make $100,000-$150,000; and 8 percent earn more than $150,000.   Brooks Brothers is prepared to court this demographic all the way to the bank. As Karl Haller, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development for Brooks Brothers, told Bloomberg News, “Most of what we position for college students is basic stuff.”  Hailer also noted that a great deal of the student body have been observed wearing dress shirts and ties to Southeastern Conference football games.  Hailer remarked, “We haven’t given them [students] collegiate suits and ties to wear.”

If this new venture pays off, maybe Brooks Brothers can bring style back to campus, giving students the tools to carry that over with them into the real world.  We can only hope.

The London season traditionally revolves around flowers, horses and regattas. To these outdoor events, a trio of fine and decorative arts fairs now competes to be added. One is a long-established fair that has fallen onto hard times and is, just now, trying to rediscover its footing; the other two are newly out of the gate, both in their second year, and both finding their artful niche.

London Fairs in June:

June 9-19, Olympia International Fine Art & Antiques Fair, London, Olympia Exhibition Centre.
Olympic was the sister ship of Titanic. While the Olympic did not have the tragic end of her sibling, it is the Titanic disaster that brings to mind last year’s Olympia fair. Like a ship in peril at sea, it too had lost its way, and allowed the winds of fashion, caprice and greed to push it dangerously close to rocks, shoals and the icy depths.

Long known as one of the biggest British fairs (and often the biggest, sometimes with over 300 dealers), Olympia had historically run the gamut of price points and exclusivity of dealers. It was a great big grab-bag, a wonderful cross-categorical market in an historic and architecturally significant iron and glass exhibition hall, and that was its great strength.

Last year, the fair was re-launched as the London International Fine Art Fair (LIFAF), put under new management, and made more “exclusive.” Stand prices were increased, the marketing campaign stressed “world class art and antiques for sale,” and the number of dealers plunged to around 180, with a significant number brought on at the last minute, lured by significant discounts that enraged dealers who had signed on many months earlier. The results were not good. A poor overall impression, worse sales, and a core group of dealers murmuring “revolt.”

This year, the fair’s 38th edition, is one of rebuilding. Dates have been pushed back from early June to mid-June, so as not to overlap with Art Basel (the mammoth modern and contemporary annual art fair in Basel, Switzerland), last year’s managing team has been replaced, and the marketing message is, again, one of fiscal inclusivity, “whether your budget is £50 or £500,000,” as one of the fair’s taglines states. Sounds like a vetted souk to me, at least I hope so. But the number of dealers now stands at just north of 150, and although they incorporate (according to promotional materials),  “design, silver, jewellery, kitchenalia; contemporary art, textiles, ceramics, watercolours, lighting, carpets, Art Deco, clocks, sculpture, mirrors and natural history,” there is a question of critical mass.
Overall rep: B
Website: B
Location: B+
Overall experience: C+

June 9-15, Art Antiques London, West Lawn, Kensington Gardens.
While Olympia stumbled by forgetting that its gargantuan scale and price-point range are what made it special, Art Antiques London scored big by keeping its size relatively small, its focus tight, and by remembering what it is alongside what it wants to become.

Launched last year by veteran fair organizers Brian and Anna Haughton, Art Antiques London incorporated their International Ceramics Fair and Seminar, a renowned specialist fair dating back to 1982. While Art Antiques London’s first edition had a wide purview—incorporating the world’s foremost porcelain dealers, the core from the Ceramics Fair, along with fine art and antiques dealers—it retained a winning mix of commerce, culture and classroom. Intimately-scaled stands with a wide range of objects housed in a bespoke, light-filled tent in Kensington Gardens, opposite the Royal Albert Hall and adjacent to the site of the Great Exhibition of 1851—coupled with a terrific lecture series, a strategic partnership with Waddesdon Manor (the former 19th-century Rothschild country house and collection) and its small Masterclass, and the Hermitage Foundation UK? It was a winning combination, yielding solid sales and a visitor count of 14,500, giving Art Antiques London a visitor-per-stand ratio of 230 to one, the highest of any of the London fairs in June.

Dealers number 72 for this second edition, up from 63 last year. New exhibitors include London-based Asian art dealer Michael Goedhuis, who will show the work of contemporary Chinese ink painter Xu Lei, whose commission currently decorates the label of Chateau Mouton Rotschild’s 2008 vintage, released last fall (pictured is Xu’s The Hidden Affinity, to be exhibited at the fair); Düsseldorf dealer Esch Kunsthandel, an expert in 18th-century ceramics, silver, rare furniture and Gothic sculpture; and Tai Gallery from Santa Fe, New Mexico, specialists in textiles, bamboo art and contemporary photography.
Overall rep: A-
Website: A-
Location: A
Overall experience: A

June 30-July 5, Masterpiece London, South Grounds at The Royal Hospital Chelsea.

Although Masterpiece London will only be celebrating a second birthday, it has already established itself as a fair not to be missed. It reached this rarified echelon, one other fairs spend years trying and often failing to achieve, at warp speed, fueled by 150 top fine and decorative art dealers, the addition of categories such as fine wines and classic cars, and pop-up restaurants by the likes of Le Caprice and Harry’s Bar, all in a beautiful, accessible setting. It was big thinking. It was out of the decorative box. It created a high decibel of buzz. And it made an artworld Happening.

This year, the fair’s second edition keeps the number of dealers at roughly 150, and promises “Bugatti to bronzes, Cartier to cognac, Picasso to pink diamonds,” or an encyclopedic offering of fine and decorative arts augmented by rare cars, wines and spirits.  One vehicular example of the level of goodies for sale is this 1961 Aston Martin DB4 GT, one of only 45 right-hand drive models made (exhibited by Hexagon Classics).

Dining/grazing options will include Le Caprice, Harry’s Bar and Mount Street Deli. The fair will also offer an educational lecture series from The Wallace Collection in London; a two-day introductory course on the decorative arts from Sotheby’s Institute of Art; a series of “lifestyle lectures” on subjects such as Champagne and cognac, the luxury automotive industry, and watch making.

Keeping the buzz-ometer on high, the fair will also present a “pioneering musical experience.” On July 2, the British chamber orchestra The Manning Camerata will unite celebrated musicians from Russia, Japan and the UK; organize them into three string quartets and a larger string ensemble positioned at different points around the fair, and conducted remotely via video link to artistic director Peter Manning; and create the world’s first-ever “chamber music soundscape.” Aural pleasure to match visual delights.
Overall rep: A
Website: A-
Location: A
Overall experience: Haven’t been so can’t say.

Auctions and Additional Fairs:

June 1, Furniture, Carpets and Decorative Art, Dorotheum, Vienna

June 6, A Park Avenue Interior by Mark Hampton, Christie’s New York

June 7, Christie’s Interiors, London, South Kensington

June 7, 500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe Including Oriental Carpets, Christie’s New York

June 7, Decorative Arts—Gordon Russell & Cotswold School Furniture, Decorative Arts—Silver and Arts and Crafts Jewellery, Decorative Arts—Ceramics and Glass, Bonhams, London

June 7, 20th Century Decorative Arts, Bonhams & Butterfields, New York

June 8, arts décoratifs, dessins anciens, sculptures, bronzes, tableaux du XIXe, tableaux modernes, Drouot-Richelieu, Paris, no e-catalog available

June 8, Design, Drouot-Montaigne, Paris, no e-catalog available

June 9, Monsieur and Madame François—A Lifetime of Collecting, Christie’s London

June 9, 500 Years Decorative Arts Europe, Christie’s London

June 9, Rugs and Carpets, Furniture, Garden Ornaments & Statues, Bonhams, Edinburgh

June 9, Important Design, Wright Auctions, Chicago

June 10, English and Continental Furniture, Decorations, Art and a Selection of Jewelry, Stair Auctioneers & Appraisers, Hudson, New York

June 14-18, Design Miami/Basel, Basel, Switzerland. A biannual forum for design, focusing on limited edition and one-off pieces, as well as the intersection of commerce and culture as it relates to design. The other edition takes place in December in Miami.

June 14, Art & Antiques Furniture Section, Carpet & Rugs Section, Bonhams, Knowle, U.K., catalog to come

June 14, English Furniture and Works of Art, Silver, Bonhams & Butterfields, Los Angeles

June 15, Important 20th Century Design, Sotheby’s, New York

June 15, Glass and Porcelain, Dorotheum, Vienna

June 15, Fine English Furniture, Bonhams, London, New Bond Street

June 15, Scottish Design from 1860, Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, catalog to come

June 16, Important 20th Century Decorative Art & Design, Christie’s New York

June 19-20, Modern and Contemporary Design, Furniture and Decorative Arts, Designer Clothing and Accessories, Bonhams & Butterfields, Rugs and Carpets, Los Angeles, catalog to come

June 21-22, Christie’s Interiors, Christie’s New York

June 21, Furniture, Rugs & Longcase Clocks, Bonhams, Chester, U.K., catalog to come

June 21, Christie’s Interiors—Masters and Makers, Christie’s London, South Kensington

June 23, Furniture and Decorative Arts, Bonhams & Butterfields, New York, catalog to come

June 25, English and Continental Furniture, Paintings, Drawings, Decoration and Jewelry, Including Property from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp, Stair Auctioneers & Appraisers, Hudson, New York, catalog to come

June 26, Fine Furniture & Decorative Arts, Bonhams, Sydney

June 28-29, Christie’s Interiors, Christie’s London, South Kensington

June 28, The Collection of John R. Eckel, Jr., Wright Auctions, Chicago, catalog to come

June 29, Art & Antiques, Mirrors, Furniture, Bonhams, Oxford, catalog to come

June 29, Fine Antiques, Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, catalog to come

June 30, Les Collections du Château de Gourdon Deuxième vente – Mobilier et objets d’art du XXème siècle, De l’Art Nouveau à l’UAM, Christie’s Paris, catalog to come

If T.S. Eliot was right and April is the cruelest month, then May, in regards to single-owner and themed sales of decorative arts, is among the quietest.

The auction houses focus on the fine arts—the Impressionist, Modern, Post-War and Contemporary categories in particular, which account for much of the weight in the auction houses’ coffers.

Highlights of the evening sales, at which the choicest (a.k.a., most expensive) offerings come to the block, include a haunting self-portrait by Andy Warhol at Christie’s, estimated to sell for between $30,000,000-$40,000,000; Pablo Picasso’s Femmes lisant (Deux personnages), featuring Picasso femme-of-the-sales-floor-moment Marie-Thérèse Walter (another Picasso picture of Walter from the 1930s, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, sold last May at Christie’s for $106.5 million, a record for any artwork sold at auction … ever), has a $25,000,000-$35,000,000 estimate; and Phillips de Pury is offering a … wait for it … Andy Warhol, in this case Liz #5 (Early Colored Liz) at an undisclosed price estimate (page 31 of the online catalog).

As far as art fairs, following the first two important fairs of spring, Sculpture Objects & Functional Art (SOFA New York) and the Spring Show NYC, both at the Armory in Manhattan, exhibitor stands lie fallow for May. It’s the quiet before the Big Bloom, when a trio—the Olympia International Fine Art & Antiques Fair, Art Antiques London, and Masterpiece London—bursts forth in June in the British capital. April showers might bring a royal wedding and May flowers, but May seeds anticipation…

Even if May is a comparatively quiet month in the decorative arts calendar, that’s not to say sales stop. Hardly. In fact, the slate for general sales is packed. Going forward, this column will list the vast majority of notable dec art sales around the world, with call outs and lengthier reports reserved for single-owner and themed sales. It’s my hope that having a single, fairly comprehensive sales survey will serve as a unique tool in the hunt for the perfect … something. Major trade-oriented contemporary furniture and design shows, such as this May’s 23rd annual International Contemporary Furniture Fair at the Javits Center in New York, will also be noted.

May 4,5 Christie’s Paris, 500 Ans: Arts Décoratifs Européens.

May 6, Drouot-Richelieu, Paris, Frames.

May 9, Drouot-Richelieu, Paris, Luxury Luggage and Accessories.

May 10,11 Christie’s Interiors, London, South Kensington.

May 10, Bonhams, London Knightsbridge, Period Design.

May 12, Wright, Scandinavian Design.

May 14, Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, Antiques.

May 14-17, International Contemporary Furniture Fair, New York.

May 17, Dorotheum, Vienna, Design.

May 17, Bonhams, New York, Natural History – Decor.

May 17, Christie’s Interiors—Style & Spirit, London, South Kensington.

May 22, Bonhams & Butterfields, San Francisco, Modern and Contemporary Furnishings and Decor, Furniture & Decorative Arts, and Garden Statuary, Furniture and Accessories.

May 22, Bonhams & Butterfields, Los Angeles, Modern and Contemporary Design and Furniture and Decorative Arts.

May 24, Christie’s Interiors, London, South Kensington.

May 24, Christie’s, The Art of the Italian Potter, Maiolica and Porcelain from a Private Collection.

May 25, 26, Freeman’s, Philadelphia, Fine English Furniture & Decorative Arts (catalog to come).

May 25, Sotheby’s Paris, 20th Century Decorative Arts & Design.

May 25, Christie’s, Syd Levethan: The Longridge Collection, London, King Street.

May 26, Christie’s, Lalique, London, South Kensington.

May 30, Pierre Bergé & Associés, House Sale: Gentilhommière du Baron et de la Baronne de Cabrol.

March 30-April 3,Pavillon des Arts & Design, Tuileries, Esplanades des Feuillants, Paris.
It’s the 15th edition of what is primarily a decorative arts fair—one comprised of 79 blue-chip, mostly Parisian dealers of beauties ranging from  18th-century FFF (fine French furniture) to prime 20th century examples of furniture and objets, Art Nouveau to Art Deco and Union des Artistes Modernes (U.A.M.) to the contemporary.
Report Card: Is it worth a special trip across the Pond? Depending on area of interest, possibly.
Overall rep: B+
Website: B+
Location: A-
Overall experience: Never been, so can’t say.

April 3, Scandinavian Design, Pierre Bergé & Associés, Brussels.

Yes, it’s that Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent’s former partner in life and love, and the architect of the YSL brand. One of his many, many business interests is this Brussels-based auction house, which has excellent, well-curated, often very specific sales. Not to be overlooked!
Online catalog.
Auction results.

April 4-5, The Collection of Sir Daniel Donohue, Bonhams & Butterfields, Los Angeles.
A prime example of why I gravitate towards single-owner sales, The Collection of Sir Daniel Donohue encompasses the passions of a single collector, his wife and in-laws, all within a fascinating familial narrative that unfolds in architecturally significant settings reflecting their time and place.

It’s a Hollywood-worthy story. An up-by-the-bootstraps businessman is born before the Civil War in a small town in Pennsylvania, moves West working for the Southern Pacific Railroad, and amasses a real-estate portfolio of land in eastern California along the railroad that soon sports mercantile stores and refrigeration plants. Businessman turns to mogul (don’t say Robber Baron—that’s this movie’s revisionist remake!) as investments extend to cement, oil fields and refineries, and shipbuilding and dock facilities. The whole SoCal industrial enchilada.

During this ascent our protagonist marries, movies into a manse—the first Italian Renaissance-style house in Los Angeles—on West Adams Boulevard, L.A.’s first Beverly Hills equivalent, then proceeds to fill it with architectural elements and statuary bought on numerous European jaunts. On one of these trips, the happy couple adopts an orphaned seven-year-old girl who, like a waif in a fairy tale, is transported to a Cali kingdom where, as the sole heir, she becomes immensely rich. But this princess-heiress is no frivolous Ugly Stepsister. Rather, she’s humble and modest and devoted to good works. She meets her future husband while he too was doing good works at a West Adams Boulevard nursing home, and together this second generation continues the philanthropy established by the first. She and her husband, like her parents, are recognized by the Vatican: she is made a Papal Countess, and he is made a knight three times over (Knight of the Military Order of Malta, Knight Grand Cross of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre and Knight of the Order of Saint Gregory the Great).

Not that they didn’t like a lot of stuff. As newlyweds, the couple purchased an important mansion in the hills, in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, an architectural pastiche of French and Italian styles and the sole L.A. work designed by Bernard Maybeck, the Beaux Arts-trained architect who designed the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition (and who was also the teacher and mentor of principal San Simeon architect Julia Morgan). Renamed the Villa San Giuseppe, renovation and re-imagination centered on the tiered grounds—antique statuary, mosaics, fountains, even a temple from a villa in Lucca, Italy. Overseen by Santa Barbara-based architect Lutah Maria Riggs and A.E. Hanson, the grounds came to be one of the largest private formal gardens created in the United States after World War II.

In the early 1960s, the Countess and her Knight also purchased Sotto il Monte, an important house in Montecito, a Tuscan-style villa designed by George Washington Smith, aka the father of Spanish Revival architecture. Coinciding with their peak collecting years, Sotto il Monte was soon filled with European works from Renaissance to Rococo, punctuated by the carefully chosen Modern piece. And so the acquisitive, charitable, never-in-the-newspapers old-school couple grew older, enjoying their collections, themselves, each other, their community and their church. Fade Out …

And so cometh the extensive collection of sir Daniel Donohue to the block, a collection to which his mother-and-father-in-law Daniel Murphy and Antoinette Sinnott Murphy, and his wife, Bernardine, contributed greatly as well. So large and varied (silver, furniture and decorative arts, Asian artworks, Old Master paintings…) that selections will be included in Bonhams and Butterfields Sunset Estate Auction in Los Angeles on May 22 and 23, and in Bonhams New Bond Street, London antiquities sale on April 13, The Russian Sale on June 8 and Old Master Paintings on July 6.
Online catalog.
Auction results.

April 7, Design, Phillips de Pury & Company, London.
Lotsa contemporary and modern furniture, with many pieces by Jean Royère and Pierre Jeanneret, as well as important Italian modern pieces (the Gio Ponti pieces – supremo!) from the private apartment of Mr. and Mrs. Sturme Castelli.
Online catalog.
Auction results (download from page).

April 8, Art and Textiles of the Islamic and Indian Worlds including Works from The Collection of the Late Simon Digby, Christie’s London, South Kensington.
Online catalog.
Auction results.

April 8, Discovery, Rago Arts, Lambertville, New Jersey.
Yo, Jersey Shore watchers and other clever bargain hunters: you forget the strong regional auction houses at the risk of losing out on great deals.
Online catalog and results.

April 11, The Meiyintang Collection – An Important Selection of Imperial Chinese Porcelains, Sotheby’s, Hong Kong.
You can well bet this auction is going to be closely watched, and is likely to produce some big-dollar surprises. Chinese porcelain has been producing huge, headline sales recently. Only last week a Chinese porcelain vase estimated at $800 sold for an eye-popping $18,002,500 at Sotheby’s New York.
Online catalog.
Auction results.

April 12-17, Salone Internazionale del Mobile, Milan.
A trade fair as opposed to a dealers fair, the Milan Furniture Fair is too important to overlook, particularly as many vanguard decorative artists and manufacturers use it as a platform to showcase their latest pieces.

April 13-17, Los Angeles Antiques Show, Barker Hanger at Santa Monica Air Center.
Sixty-five local and regional dealers with a few from farther away (domestic and international). Los Angeles-based interior designer Mary McDonald, one of the five featured designers on Bravo’s upcoming reality show Million Dollar Decorators, will design the fair’s entryway, a ‘70’s glam set complemented by fashions from the Disco Era as well. Modernism, antiques and show bidness.
Report Card: Worth a trip if you’re a local or live in SoCal.
Overall rep: B-
Website: C+
Location: C+

Fine Furniture, Silver and Decorative Arts including the Estate of James Wilde, Bonhams and Butterfields, New York.
Online catalog and results.

April 14-17, SOFA New York, Park Avenue Armory.
You don’t need to couch praise for SOFA New York, the annual Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair. Now in its 14th edition, the fair—which now numbers 55 galleries from 12 countries—has transcended its earlier craft-y incarnation and become a primo venue for decorative arts honing the cutting edge.

Contemporary dec artists pushing parameters via technology abound this year. Michael Eden (shown by Clare Beck at London’s Adrian Sassoon gallery) explores traditional ceramic shapes manufactured with thoroughly of-the-moment technology. “Grey Bloom,” pictured left, a recent nylon piece with a soft mineral coating in the shape of Wedgwood tureen (chosen because Josiah Wedgwood was at the forefront of the original,18th-century Industrial Revolution), is an example, as is “Alathea,” Eden’s bar-coded ode to a classical cornucopia. Glass artist Luke Jerram (shown by Heller Gallery) blows up viruses and cells—such as “Smallpox,” “Untitled Future Mutation,” and “HIV” (all three pictured below)—gives fresh, provocative perspective to the exploration of disease, death and disassociation. Beauty in death, death in beauty? Here, both apply.

Additionally, Sergey Jivetin (at Ornamentum gallery), winner of the prestigious Herbert Hoffman Press and Jewelry Forum Emerging Artist Award, fashions personal adornments in media ranging from eggshell to Kevlar to broken porcelain handles, fishing hooks and packing materials, all with his stated goal of plumbing the interaction between beauty, physicality and knowledge. And Scottish artist Geoffrey Mann’s sculptures at London’s Joanna Bird portray the ephemeral in a manner that would have been impossible only a few years ago. Using digital techniques to investigate reflective properties of objects in materials such as silver, glass and fiber, Mann has created a process in which a planar 3-D scanner documents “reflective” information that is used to create a rapid prototyped form that is then cast.

Expanding to three days this year, the lecture series—which includes speakers such as Eden, Jivetin and Mann, as well as jewelry artist Jennifer Trask and Jeannine Falino, curator of the Museum of Art and Design (New York)—is another layer of beauteous gilding. New to the fair is a New Collectors/Young Designers Night, on Friday, April 15 at 6:30pm, which is coordinating with local museums like The Cooper Hewitt National design Museum and Museum of Arts & Design in New York to invite their young collectors groups as well. The fair will also have its 4th Annual Designer Breakfast on Thursday, April 14—a designer breakfast preview and panel discussion featuring designers Alexander Gorlin, Amy Lau and the gimlet-eyed Juan Montoya, and moderated by Greg Cerio, editor of Modern Magazine.
Preview: Wednesday, April 13.
Report Card: Worthy of a special trip to New York? If sculptural objects and functional art float your decorative boat, then yes; this is the finest and most exciting fair of its kind in the United States.
Overall rep: B+/A-
Website: B+
Location: B+ (The best venue in New York for a dec arts fair, the Armory is nevertheless not on par with exposition spaces in Europe or Asia. So in New York it’s an A, on a global scale a B+.)
Overall experience: Never been; can’t say.

April 15, A Private West Coast Collection: 19th Century Decorative Works of Art, Sotheby’s, New York.
Online catalog.
Auction results.

April 18, Tony Duquette, Talismans of Power, Bonhams & Butterfields, Los Angeles.
Sumptuous, enlivening, large pieces replete with oodles of whimsy and low estimates. One can dream, right?
Online catalog and results.

April 18, Luxury Luggage and Accessories, Drouot Auction House, Paris.
While France’s share of the overall global art market is now but 6% (according to The Global Art Market in 2010: Crisis and Recovery), the number of auctions is disproportionately large—very large, in fact. That translates to many small sales, often themed, style or genre specific, and often yielding bargains. The venerable Hôtel Drouot Auction House has auctions nearly every day. Its locales, including online [www.drouot.com] bear frequent monitoring.
Online catalog coming.

April 20, Manuscripts from the Estate of Charles Williamson and Tucker Fleming, Bonhams and Butterfields, New York and Los Angeles.
While the story behind The Collection of Sir Daniel Donohue might have inspired a Hollywood epic from the Golden Era that likely would not have had legs with contemporary audiences, the story behind Manuscripts from the Estate of Charles Williamson and Tucker Fleming could be the fascinating fodder for an independent film that, like acclaimed 1998 Gods and Monsters, could capture both critics, awards and reasonable box office.

The story: Charles Williamson, a young Yale drama student, and San Franciscan Gary Cooper-ish Howard “Tucker” Fleming meet on the teach in Cannes in 1951, become a well-connected man couple, gallivant around the world counting the likes of Tennessee Williams, Paul Bowles, Noel Coward, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, Somerset Maugham and Christopher Isherwood chums or friend acquaintances, then move to West Hollywood, California, in 1961, where they set up house next to legendary Hollywood director and uber social George Cukor.

Given Williamson and Fleming’s pals, connections, erudition and house locale, is it any wonder that in their 54 years together they built a massive collection of manuscripts covering literature, art, music, theater and film?

Bonhams and Butterfields has separated the collection into two parts for simulcast New York-Los Angeles auctions. The first session will focus on literature, art, music and dance, and world figures, with an emphasis on 19th and 20th-century European writers and artists (although American are represented too); the second on film and theater.
Online catalog and results.

April 28-May 2, Spring Show NYC, Park Avenue Armory.
Back before the Great Recession, fine and decorative art fairs were springing up like so many perfumed porcelain flowers in a garden dreamed by Madame de Pompadour. Created in the fires of financial markets set to high, these blooms proved fragile, hardly hardy perennials and, ceramics notwithstanding, withered away in the ensuing freeze of credit and frost of cash. Several of these fairs—the Moscow World Fine Art Fair, the Salzburg World Fine Art Fair and Art Antiques Design Dubai among them—were interesting and innovative and, especially in the case of the Moscow fair, becoming exciting platforms when bad timing and luck struck.

So it’s no small beer that, following a fallow few years, a new fair grows in Manhattan at the end of the month. Comprised of 65 dealers (all except one from the U.S.), and with wares ranging from antiquity through the 20th century, the Spring Show NYC sprouts from the Art and Antique Dealers League of America, the oldest antiques and fine arts organization in America. Produced by the Art Fair Company, which counts the SOFA fairs in Chicago, New York and Santa Fe as well as The Intuit Outsider and Folk Art Fair in Chicago on its roster, the Spring Show NYC’s organizers are showing savvy and flair right out of the ground.  The opening night preview benefits the ASPCA (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), a connection made thematic through a special selection of animal-theme artworks at the exhibitors’ stands.

There is the animal as totem, a symbol of character traits or cultural values, and often used in ceremony and ritual, such as an earthenware figurine from 20th-century Nigeria used as a burial market and bearing both human and animal attributes at dealer Douglas Dawson. A 19th-century statue of Ganapati, a.k.a., Ganesha or Ganesa, the roly poly, beloved, part-human, part-elephant Hindu god at Arnold Lieberman. A blue and gold 19th-century Chinese carpet running with eight horses of Zhou dynasty emperor Mu Wang at M. Topalian Fine Antique Carpets. (Bulls, elephants, horses—oh my!)

There is also the animal as cute companion and playful decoration, such as an Austrian painted terra cotta bullmastiff from around 1870 at Clinton Howell; a late 19th-century life-like Japanese ivory sculpture of an Akita, the eyes inlaid with horn for a realistic effect, at Orientations Gallery; or, at Hyde Park Antiques, a pair of Irish William IV (c. 1830) elm armchairs with arm supports sculpted as crouching hunting dogs. A portion of proceeds from the sale of these animal-themed works also goes to the ASPCA.

The call of the wild further extends to the fair’s lecture series. The big bark, to my mind, comes at 3pm on April 28, when the ever-entertaining Tim Knox, Director of London’s Sir John Soane’s Museum, will speak about “Architecture for Animals: Menageries and Aviaries in Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth-Century England.” Here’s an excerpt from the description: “Exotic birds and animals had long been prized as pets and curiosities in Britain, but the eighteenth century saw the establishment of menageries and aviaries as a fashionable adjunct to a country house garden or park … They often took the form of lavishly decorated banqueting houses with adjacent pens and cages for fierce or unusual animals, or brilliantly plumaged birds.” To the host: “May I please sit at the table closest to the tiger?” Call it animal instinct.
Preview: Wednesday, April 27, 5pm-7pm, invitation; public admission 7pm-9pm.
Report Card: It’s an inaugural fair, so too early to weigh in.

April 28, Living Contemporary, Wright Auctions, Chicago.
This second Living Contemporary sale includes work by the likes of Ron Arad and Marc Newson alongside artworks by George Grosz and David Hockney. Other highlights: a Feather stool by Shiro Kuramata, a dining set by Gerald Summers and a lounge chair by Franco Campo and Carlo Graffi.
Online catalog.
Auction results.

By nearly ubiquitous consent amongst curators, collectors, connoisseurs, cognoscenti and arts writers comme moi, TEFAF is the mother ship of fine and decorative arts fairs, its bona fides a blue-chip gauge by any measure: 260 exhibitors from 16 countries offering over 30,000 works of art across nine categories, encompassing millennia of human creativity and expression, vetted by 168 experts in 29 specialist committees, and cumulatively valued in the ballpark of $1.4 billion—all under one roof, at the Maastricht Exhibition & Congress Centre (MECC) from March 18-27, with an invitation-only preview, or vernissage, on Thursday 17. IPhone impressions of this champagne drenched, oyster-fueled jamboree are below (the annoying but kind of addictive house music accompaniment is “New Dutch Shuffle” by DJ Jean).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=twOt0iXEPWU

Then there are the more amusing but no less indicative qualifiers, such as the number of private jets landing at the local Maastricht-Aachen airport. Carol Vogel, reporting for the NYT, put the number at 60 for Thursday alone, up from 43 last year; and Roger Webster and Jason Grant, writing for the haute website New York Social Diary, quote popular TEFAF board member Michel Witmer (who’s also TEFAF Ambassador to America, a post holding no diplomatic immunity) as saying that the airport was “fully booked with private jets for Sunday evening so that the biggest collectors and the wealthiest buyers can enter the fair on Monday morning, without the weekend crowds.” (In their article, Webster and Grant also offer the perfect quote from Winston Churchill to refute Washington politico philistines who see the already measly U.S. arts funding as a waste and/or subsidy for ne’er do wells and other elite subversives: When asked to cut arts funding in favor of the war effort in World War II, Churchill pithily countered: “Then what are we fighting for?” Nuff said).

Over the eleven days, crowd clickers clock in numbers north of 70,000. Last year saw 73,073, a 7.75% increase over the previous year. But TEFAF organizers aren’t interested in topping attendance records, not in regards to the hoi polloi, hence the ticket price increase of several years ago, with a single ticket now costing €55, or approximately $78, which includes one encyclopedic, luggage busting but irresistible catalog. Foot traffic is ever crucial, but it’s the well-heeled feet that matter most at this and all art fairs. How else prospectively to pay for the exhibitors stands, which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in rental and décor, to say nothing of shipping and insurance?

Of course, the boldfaced provide yet another way to tabulate TEFAF’s importance. All the major museums—from the MET to the Getty to the Louvre to the Prado to the Hermitage to the National Gallery, etc.—send their peeps, as do the major auction houses. But it’s the billionaire regular attendees, among them Bernard Arnault, Alfred Taubman and David Koch, as well as members of ruling houses—for example, the acquisitive Sheikh Saud Al Thani of Qatar and home-court Dutch Princess Marilène van Oranje—who get dealers’ eyes popping the fastest.

Oh wait … I’m forgetting the art. Primo offerings this year included the much publicized late-career Rembrandt oil “Portrait of a Man with Arms Akimbo,” offered by New York-based Otto Naumann for $47 million (the painting is owned by Vegas hotelier and casino billionaire Stephen Wynn, who bought it at Christie’s London just over a year ago, in December 2009 for $32.8 million).  A delicate Renoir of the first Madame Claude Monet (de-accessioned from the Sterling and Fancine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts). A stunning “Portrait of Mary, Countess Lawrence” by Sir Thomas Lawrence at Richard Green. The last known suit of late 15th-century German jousting armor in private hands, brought by London’s Peter Finer. A sleek and sexy oak and steel desk by Jean Prouvé at the Galerie Downtown François Laffanour. A pair of extremely rare early 18th-century porcelain leopards believed to have been made for the reigning Kangxi emperor (from London’s Cohen & Cohen). Munich’s Daniel Blau gallery’s Lucian Freud portrait entitled “The Painter’s Mother.” More Old Masters (among them several Frans Hals, a standout Frans Francken and lovely  Gerard ter Borch) than you can shake a pearl earring at; roomfuls of Austrian expressionist Egon Schiele; walls hung with erotic nudes from Helmut Newton; an 18th-century Russian writing desk with Imperial provenance; an ancient Egyptian fragment of a water clock depicting and commissioned by Alexander the Great; there’s even a 118-carat yellow diamond that reportedly took over a year to cut. It’s an Alladin’s convention center of riches, an encyclopedic museum where every display is for sale.

Speaking of sales in macro, an additional aspect that renders this fair unique is an annual art market report commissioned by the TEFAF’s organizers, the European Fine Art Foundation. With the accurate, never to be a best-selling title The Global Art Market in 2010: Crisis and Recovery, the 170-page report is written by Dr. Clare McAndrew, a cultural economist specializing in the fine and decorative art market. While art market numbers, especially those given by dealers, are notoriously difficult to verify, Dr. McAndrew draws attention to several extremely interesting and significant trends and findings, among them: in 2010 the global art market rose by 52% to €43 billion; China became the world’s second largest art market with a global share of 23% of all art sales (totaling almost €6 billion) and overtaking the U.K.; the U.S. continued to dominate the art and antiques market with a share of 35% (although falling from a high of 46% in 2006). To order the report, available after April 1, click here.

March 6, Modern Art & Design Auction, Los Angeles Modern Auctions. Auction results.
This auction’s press release is unsubtle but sums up the sale’s importance perfectly: “Property from the estate of computer billionaire Max Palevsky [high-tech prescient, venture capitalist and L.A. cultural paladin] and works from the collection of James Byrnes, the first curator of Modern Art at LACMA, will trade hands for the first time on March 6, 20100 at the upcoming LAMA auction. Over half of the 500 plus items [524 lots in all] offered in the March 6^th auction have never before traded hands on the open market.” Great provenances, with all lots sold at little or no reserve, are what auction house director Peter Loughrey calls “icing on the cake.” He’s right. And this is a prime example of why it’s important to keep regional auction houses (aka, all those not in New York) in the cultural and acquisitive crosshairs. As the French and French-ly inclined Americans say, On ne sait jamais!

What I do know is treasure pop up, and there are often good deals, even extremely good deals, to be had and dec arts knowledge and know-how to be gleaned. Palevsky, for one, was a major patron of Ettore Sottsass and his post-modern furniture creations that are, by turns, loved or loathed. But the Sottsass pieces on offer here are custom creations, many made in noble materials. Several of the pieces (such as lots 51 and 55, a custom sofa and entry table, pictured) are also monumental.

The bulk of Palevsky’s estate was sold last fall at Christie’s New York, and brought approximately $56 million. This article from the Los Angeles Times Culture Monster blog gives more deets about the Palevsky pieces and why they’re being auctioned in L.A. Other covetable consignments in the auction include fine art by Venice-based artist Richard Pettibone and Cali-kissed Ed Ruscha, and dec arts from Rudolph Schindler, the Eamses, George Nakashima, Paul Tuttle and Frank Gehry (among many other artists and artisans).
Online catalog.

March 9, The Eric Clapton sale of Guitars and Amps in aid of the Crossroads Centre, Bonhams, New York and Los Angeles. Hey, it’s a single-owner sale, and yes musical instruments are dec arts. Rock on.
Online catalog.

March 10, What Modern Is: The Collection of Mark McDonald, Sotheby’s New York.
This single-owner sale of goodies belonging to gallerist Mark McDonald is a biggie. The man behind three successful galleries—Fifty/50 and Gansevoort Gallery in Manhattan and his current eponymous gallery in Hudson, New York—McDonald did much to promote “midcentury modern” as a category and to move it into the consciousness of the design and decorating worlds. James Zemaitis, Sotheby’s Senior Vice President of 20^th Century Design, underscores McDonald’s importance in the flack release: “The title of the auction recalls Design 1935-1965: What Modern Was, the seminal exhibition catalogue that was the first to codify in a succinct way the history of modernism as seen in the decorative arts.” Nuff said.
Semi-interesting YouTube-ish online video (first of two) with a visit to the Hudson gallery and preparation of the catalog.
Online catalog.
Get the $53 hard catalog? Yes, if you’re a modern enthusiast.

March 11, 20^th Century Decorative Art & Design, Christie’s New York.
Part of this regular catch-all are pieces from the estate of Morton Swinsky, a Wall Street bond trader who had a taste for charming animal-inspired furniture, much of it limited production from studio furniture designers like Judy Kensley McKie (in fact, this sale is the largest selection of her work ever to appear at auction). My pick is lot 101, the stained wood and patinated bronze “Monkey” bench.
Online catalog.

March 15, The Chester Sale: European Ceramics and Glass including the Dygnas collection of Bourdalou, Bonhams London.
Quotidian, highly functional and often extremely pretty—such is the bourdalou, a highly under-praised sub-category of 18^th and 19^th-century porcelain, pottery and glassware.

What is it? An oval or oval-ish container into which ladies would relieve themselves. That’s right, it’s a piss pot. The likely apocryphal story is that Louis Bourdaloue, a French Jesuit priest at the court of Louis XIV, gave such interminable sermons that ladies took to bringing these rather discreet vessels with them, which they used, hidden under their voluminous robes a la françaises. The great manufacturies—Sevres, Limoges, Meissen, Wedgewood, Coalport—all were interested in this #1 container, which was used as often in carriages, during long trips, as in church. Word to the wise: these are not to be confused with sauceboats, as a friend of mine once did, and who, upon learning of her porcelain’s original purpose did not blanche: “Well, how original my table is!” This enormous sale of 896 lots has bourdalous from lot 72 to lot 141. And trust, many are very beautiful.
Online catalog.

Additionally, on March 16 Bonhams in London is offering Ceramic Design from 1860, which contains two single-owner sales. The first, The Professor Abbey Collection of Moorcroft Pottery, is just shy of 60 lots. The second is the small but sublime 18-lot collection from an anonymous New Zealander.
Online catalog.

March 14, 16, Property from the Estate of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands: All to be Sold for the Benefit of Charity, Rai Theater/Sotheby’s Amsterdam. (The recipient—charity—is in the sale’s title, lest there be worry the Dutch royal family might soon be passing the hat, er crown.)
If you’re a few days early for TEFAF Maastricht, why not check this sale out? Fit for a queen—you be the judge.
Online catalog.

March 29, 30, 31, Les Collections du Chateau de Gourdon, Chefs-d’oeuvre du XXeme siècle, Palais de Tokyo, Christie’s Paris.
A top Christie’s executive in New York calls this the Mac Daddy of single-owner sales for March. Too true, but this suave and sophisticated executive is being too modest, because this sale might be the new reigning Mac Daddy of all decorative arts sales in the history of dec arts sales, surpassing the current record holder: Christie’s Paris’ jaw-dropping Yves Saint Laurent-Pierre Bergé 20^th Century Decorative Arts sale, which in February 2009 cashed in at €59.1.

The collection of 20^th century Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and Modernist works by members of the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM) is comprised of ubiquitously significant pieces, many of them one-offs, is estimated to garner €40-€60 million, and was assembled over the last fifteen years by Laurent Negro, the heir to a vast French employment agency who has not yet cracked forty (and whom you are therefore free to despise). Until recently, Negro has been displaying his I.I.C. (incredibly important collection) in his chateau near Grasse on the French Riviera. Reasons for the sale are varied. Some say he wants to transition the chateau from museum back to private home; others report tensions between Negro and the local municipality.

Not in dispute is the richness and depth of what’s coming to the block. Brothers and sisters, we’re talking over 500 works by big dogs like Louis Majorelle, Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Jean Dunand, Eileen Gray, Pierre Chareau, Jacques Adnet, Charlotte Perriand, Robert Mallet Stevens … it just goes on and on (there are 45 pieces by Ruhlmann alone). As important, as Susan Moore explains in her article for Apollo, the collection “uniquely, tells the story of the transition between the traditional grand French luxury ‘craft’ style of the early century, as exemplified by the classical Art Deco creations of Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann (1879–1933), and the emergence of Modernism and the Union des Artistes Modernes (UAM), with its radical new Utopian and democratic approach to design for the machine age.” Big stuff. (The image is Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann’s Chaise Longue ‘Aux Skis’ Dite Du ‘Maharadjah, lot 18, estimate €2-3 million.)
Needless to say, for such a sale Christie’s is pulling out all the stops. Here’s a terrific vid replete with pretty Harry Potter-ish music.
Online catalog.
Get the not-quite-yet-available (I’ll update here with a link) hard catalogs? Y.E.S. They will be an excellent addition to your design library (and likely hot tickets on Ebay). Buy them a.s.a.p.

March 30, Kinross House, Scotland and Property Removed from the London Residence of Mrs. Winston Spencer Churchill, Christie’s London.
Online catalog.

March 30, 31, Fine European Furniture, including Tapestries and Ceramics, Sotheby’s New York.
The big news about this sale is it includes treasures and trinkets from Albert Hadley, a grand homme of American design who drew the curtains on his firm last year. Estimates seem absurdly low, which likely means sale prices will go absurdly high. Christopher Petkanas’s piece in T Magazine gives all the well-accessorized details.
Online catalog coming soon.

March 31, Modern Design, Wright
333 lots of European and American modern furniture and accessories, with some contemporary designs too (such as Marc Newson’s Embroy chair in neoprene and aluminum from c. 1988, and a fantastic Frank Gehry Grandpa Beaver armchair from the Experimental Edges series in corrugated cardboard).
Online catalog.