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Houston, Texas

HADA Show Returns Bigger and Better

by David Anderson

"Every spring for the past 42 years, HADA hosts more than 150 worldwide dealers in fine antiques and has grown to be one of the largest shows in the Southwest. For four fabulous days, many well-known dealers of furniture, paintings, jewelry and accessories will offer the rare, unusual, precious and bizarre to antique novices and experienced collectors." So wrote Dodie Delaney, president of the Houston Antiques Dealers Association, in her welcoming letter in the full-color booklet for this year's spring show, held March 2-5.

Actually, Delaney, a longtime vendor of antiques in the Houston area, was being modest. This post-Hurricane Katrina show (the HADA 2005 fall show was canceled because of disruptions caused by the Gulf hurricane) was bigger and better than ever.

Mounted in the George R. Brown Convention Center located at the edge of downtown Houston, the site has ideal facilities for this and similar public events: accessibility, good creature comforts, high ceilings with excellent lighting, ample parking, and last but not least, good food service.

HADA is a nonprofit organization, and over the years the show's proceeds have benefited a number of local charities: The Heritage Society, which works to preserve the complete history of a community or region through preservation and restoration of historic structures; The Brookwood Community, serving functionally disabled adults; the Houston Junior Forum, a women's volunteer organization committed to providing charitable service to children, youth, and senior adults; and others.

This year, the 24th annual HADA lecture, "The Art of René Lalique," was held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on Tuesday, February 28, two days prior to the show opening. Adding to the distinguished roster created by past HADA lectures, the speaker was Nicholas Dawes, a faculty member of the Parsons School of Design in New York City since 1983. Dawes is considered this country's leading authority on works by René Lalique (1860-1945).

Slowly making our way through the aisles with camera and tape recorder in hand, we found tempting selections of high-end antiques. Stopping briefly at the booth of Clifton House Antiques, a well-known Houston dealer who specializes in Georgian and Victorian silver, we chatted with Jan and Richard Leach, who are frequent travelers to England and are recognized experts on the works of English silversmiths Paul Storr and Hester Bateman. Jan Leach is the recent past president of HADA. As usual, their offerings were sumptuous.

We found our visit with John Forster of Barometer Fair, Sarasota, Florida, to be interesting and productive. Forster is a transplanted Englishman who is readily recognizable by his accent and his expertise on vintage scientific apparatus, particularly barometers. His display of a superb Thacher cylindrical slide rule was especially relevant to this engineer, whose early days of professional practice predated the arrival of electronic calculators. Perhaps a vintage Thacher slide rule is not for everyone, but for this writer it was a powerful magnet.

We found William Spencer of The Ragman, Portland, Michigan, to be approachable, friendly, and knowledgeable. His business card reads: "An Eye for the Obscure, A Taste for the Bazaar," a statement that is fully supportable by his inventory. Indeed, his collection of militaria and old firearms must be truly unique. He offered an antique toy black powder cannon, probably from the early days of the 19th century for Fourth of July celebrations. We imagine that today it would be highly illegal to fire it, if not dangerous, but it is a great collector's item.

Moving on to the showplace booth of Chappell Jordan Clock Galleries, Houston, we found an impressive display of fine antique clocks of all styles and periods. Under the same roof as their Houston business is Chappell Jordan's repair and restoration group, Expert Clock Repair, Inc., whose two principals, Jeff Zuspan and Ralph Pokluda, were in attendance. Last fall, they had hosted a symposium of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors (NAWCC), where this writer was pleasantly surprised to find a fellow M.A.D. writer seated at the same table where we enjoyed Texas barbecue. Small world! That writer, Jeanne Schinto, was accompanying her husband, also a member of NAWCC.

Elsewhere in the show we found large collections of fine art prints, books, silver, art glass, jewelry, period furniture, European and Asian antiques, and many treasures too numerous to mention individually. The HADA show booklet is a prize in itself, a monument to many dedicated volunteer workers.

The next HADA show will be held September 28-October 1. For additional information, call show committee chair Roger Howard at (713) 869-5561 or visit the Web site (www.hada antiques.com).