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The American Antiques Show 2005

by Lita Solis-Cohen

The American Antiques Show (TAAS) is a brave idea. For four years The American Folk Art Museum has produced this All-American antiques show in New York City going head-to-head with the Winter Antiques Show and the auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's, aiming to be a not-to-be-missed event during Americana week in New York.

The show was born at the Metropolitan Pavilion on 19th Street in Chelsea in 2002, and after three years when show goers finally were convinced that going south of Rockefeller Center can be an adventure and that Chelsea has some very good restaurants and art galleries, someone made a huge mistake and booked the wrong weekend at the Metropolitan Pavilion for the 2005 show. When the mistake was noticed, it was too late to make the change to coincide with the first weekend of the Winter Show when the auctions were scheduled. A new venue had to be found.

For the 2005 show they settled on raw space on the seventh floor of the new Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle. The dealers, who very much want this show to succeed, accommodated by sending their trucks in early and packing out until the wee hours of the morning over several days after the show closed because there was only one elevator and one loading dock. Many complained about the lack of security and about spending extra days in New York because of the expense of hotels and food for themselves and a helper.

The dealers designed their booths with flair, but the floor plan was unhandy and it caused ill feelings between dealers and among show goers. Some dealers who paid $9800 for 24-foot booths found themselves in the airy two- story section where, at the preview party, there was music and tables with some very good dim sum. An entire wall in this section was not used, and it could have been, making it unnecessary for four dealers to set up in a cramped cul-de-sac near the bar. These dealers resented paying $9000 for 20-foot stands.

Shoppers had to take an escalator to the third floor to get their tickets or have them validated, then take an elevator to the eighth floor to hang up their coats, and finally take another elevator to the seventh floor to see the show. They called it an obstacle course.

At the preview party, a velvet cord at one access to the elevators herded people into the big room first where the dealers on the show committee had their stands. Then they turned left and walked around to a dark aisle with a low ceiling where the dealers felt as cramped as at a street bazaar. There were three short aisles in another section with big windows that offered a spectacular view of Central Park and Fifth Avenue beyond. The big windows and the concrete floor gave that section of the show the look of the old Sandy Smith pier shows, the initial fundraiser for the Folk Art Museum.

The preview party was well attended by a well-heeled crowd, and they spent a lot of money. Those who are passionate about folk art and furniture came again during the weekend, and they bought so some dealers said they had a good show.

The blizzard of 2005 that began before noon on Saturday and raged all afternoon and the dig-out on Sunday took its toll. It didn't help that Mayor Bloomberg, who wrote a flattering welcome in the show catalog, told New Yorkers to stay inside on Saturday and Sunday. Dealers said that after the show they got letters from past customers thanking them for sending tickets and regretting they had been afraid to drive in from Connecticut or West Chester or even walk ten blocks on partially shoveled New York Streets. Even though there is a subway hub at the Time Warner Center the storm did affect business and the gate. A number of dealers said they lost a lot of money because sales were slow and they had to spend more time than usual in expensive New York. The museum didn't make as much money as expected because of high expenses and the weak gate on Saturday and Sunday.

In spite of the floor plan that caused ill will, those who came enjoyed discovering some first rate art and they got the Time Warner shopping mall as an extra bonus. Many bought and some made multiple purchases. Grace and Elliott Snyder said they had their best show anywhere ever selling furniture, quilts, needlework, hooked rugs, and pottery to old customers and to one new one. The bulk of their sales were made at the preview and on the first day of the show, but they said they sold something every day. "It think it was because the spotlight is on Americana in New York in January and anyone who cares about Americana is in New York that week," said Grace Snyder.

The preview party is an annual conclave of top collectors and there were enough iconic objects in this show to stop them in their tracks. Ricco/Maresca Gallery offered William Edmondson's limestone sculpture of Adam and Eve with a photograph of the artist Edmondson by Edward Weston hanging above it.

Elliot and Grace Snyder showed a 19th-century quilt made by Elizabeth Livingston who must have lived in New York State for it has purple Concord grapes as a border and as part of each of the nine baskets of orange, yellow, and green flowers that fill the field, though Grace Snyder thinks it was made in Maryland. Jan Whitlock sold her famous "critter rug" on which lambs and other animals make their way up and down the hills under a large basket of flowers.

Stephen O'Brien could have sold his pair of Canada Geese decoys several times. One is swimming; the other, preening. Joan Brownstein offered Edward Savage's large double portrait of the Davis children, two full length standing figures in white dresses with pink sashes, the best of Federal portraiture, in its original neoclassical gold leaf frame. David Wheatcroft had a fresh and bright Sturtevant Hamblen portrait of a little boy with a hoop.

The pictures accompanying this story give some idea of what was there and what was sold. Some collectors bought quickly at the preview, some had reserved what they bought before hand, and others came back and bought another day. Arthur Liverant sold a Connecticut River Valley secretary after the blizzard. Not every dealer sold very well. There was a large turnover of dealers this year. The two photography and two American art dealers added new categories to the show but it was not the right venue for them.

Several dealers in Outsider art sold well. John Ollman presented collages by Felipe Jesus Consalvos, who was born in Havana in 1891 and died in Philadelphia circa 1957. His son Jose, who died in Brooklyn in 1968, collaborated with him on certain densely patterned, two-dimensional works and sculptural collages, which Ollman says, are aesthetically comparable to Joseph Cornell and Dada, Surrealist, Constructivist, and Futurist collage. He sold 80 pieces of these works and had his best fair ever.

Jacqueline Crist, the Boise, Idaho, art dealer introduced the work of James Castle, the deaf self-taught Boise artist, at the Outsider Fair in New York in 1996 and has released his work to critical acclaim over the last nine years. She offered collages and drawings and said she sold well and would come back to this show again. "One of the fascinating thing about Outsider art that it can be sold in the mainstream art world," she said. And apparently a folk art show benefiting a museum that has a department of self-taught art is a good place for her to show.

The promoters of this fair have their work cut out for them if TAAS is to succeed next year. The dealers say there will be a huge turnover. Disgruntled dealers say they will not return. Some think the fair should concentrate on folk art and not go far afield with photography and American paintings and sculpture. Isn't a small show that keeps the level of excellence high economically feasible? Buying patterns at this show suggested the market for folk art and painted furniture is healthy and some formal furniture sold too. The three dealers in American Indian arts also made sales, and needlework continues to have a following. Sam Herrup sold a lot of pottery and dealers with edgy Outsider Art sold when it was reasonably priced.

Poor floor plans plague many shows. In 2004 dealers suggested the floor plan at the Metropolitan Pavilion needed revamping, pointing out that the wide aisles designed to accommodate food for the opening make those dealers on the narrow aisles seem like second tier. They point out that at the New York Winter Show all the aisles are of equal width, and everyone can step back to get the broad picture.