The trend for “cross-collecting” (see my previous piece on Masterpiece) continues unabated, and as should be expected of the talented crew at Frieze, the Frieze Masters fair gives us a masterclass. For those interested in tracking differences between art fairs, Frieze Masters selection is across history, but in the main limited to paintings and works of art and excluding furniture and jewellery. Of course go far enough back and the differences between art and antiques starts to blur.
Exhibitions
Masterpiece doesn’t care about looking like a museum or being cool; it cares about money and what you can buy with it. It is about the object. It is an event whose sheer range of expensive things defies the taste of the most hardened collector. It challenges collectors, making them aware of excellence that is just outside of their usual field of vision.
The prevailing wisdom is Masterpiece has now surpassed all others and can honestly be called the finest show on earth for decorative arts. And for many international collectors it is their favorite show to visit. Masterpiece offers a hugely diverse range of exhibitors and their treasures, as well as dining at some of London’s finest establishments contained within the fair, against the backdrop of Christopher Wren’s Royal Hospital Chelsea with it’s 300-year history. All of this walking distance from the heart of London.
I invite you to visit the fair for the last three days. And if you can’t make it this year, please make sure you put it in your diary for next year. – Michael James
One of the missing Imperial Fabergé Easter Eggs made for the Russian Royal family will be on public view for the first time in 112 years, at Court Jeweller’s Wartski in Mayfair in the run up to Easter. The magnificent Third Imperial Fabergé Easter Egg will be on view for four days only from the 14th April 2014, 11am to 5pm. Entrance is free, but queues are expected but it will be worth the wait as it is unlikely to be seen again by the public for a long time, if ever.
Summers Place Auctions are the world’s leading auctioneers of Garden Statuary and fossil decoration. The sales are held in the new award winning 5000sq ft gallery nestling within 6 acres of walled gardens and the arboretum of the Victorian mansion, Summers Place. Their specialist sales of Sculpture and Design for the House and Garden in May and October include examples of the finest garden ornaments. Evolution is their first specialist sale of natural history in which the first sale of a large dinosaur skeleton at auction in the UK will take place on 27th November 2013.
Grosvenor House Art Fair, founded in 1934, used to be the grand art and antiques fair of London, but, after a half century of glory, it steadily declined and, like a dowdy old dowager, finally gave up the ghost, in 2009.
A year after its demise, Masterpiece stepped nimbly into its place, but establishing itself in much more airy and spacious premises in Chelsea rather than the cramped and penumbral environs of the Grosvenor House Hotel.
This June, at the peak of the capital’s summer season, Masterpiece London brings together collectors, exhibitors and curators from around the world for an unparalleled show of fine art, antiques and design.
The exhibition on Pompeii and Herculanum currently at the British Museum gives us an amazing view of how human beings lived 2000 years ago. The murals, sculptures, pyramids and temples in Egypt give us an astonishing view of how people lived 4,500 years ago. Most of us find it hard to imagine life further back than that: indeed we rarely get an opportunity to even think about it, unless we have taken the trouble to look at the dustier sections of museums, usually just called “Prehistoric Man’.
Historically, there has always been popular and critical dissent over art. Not everyone at the time thought Michelangelo or Caravaggio were geniuses, for example. However, the arguments were generally over content: few would have disputed their technical merit. Workmanship was always one important criterion for art (remember ‘ars’ in Latin means ‘skill’). Well, that’s gone for a Burton. So what’s left?
The National Portrait Gallery is offering the first show to focus entirely on photographic portraiture by Man Ray (1890-1976), one of the most innovative and influential artists of the 20th century, a conceptual artist and film-maker but known today more for his photographs – even though photography was not his preferred artistic medium.
