New York City

The Winter Antiques Show

by Lita Solis-Cohen

For the last 42 years, the Winter Antiques Show has turned the Seventh Regiment Armory at Park Avenue and 67th Street into a tantalizing antiques bazaar for ten days in the bleakest month of the year. The show is a benefit for the East Side House Settlement in the South Bronx, which depends on the show for a good portion of its operating expenses, and the show committee works hard to make more and more money each year.

January was initially picked for the antiques show because it used to be such a dull time in the trade. Dealers welcomed the chance to exhibit their wares at a time when their shops were generally empty. Put 72 top dealers in one place, and collectors will make the pilgrimage to New York City from all parts of the country.

Serious collectors and those with a philanthropic bent paid $500 a ticket this year and lined up in the drafty Armory entryway half an hour before the doors opened to get first chance to buy at the earliest of the preview parties, which began at 5 p.m on January 16. Those less eager, or perhaps not quite as flush, bought $300 tickets for 6 p.m. entry; and the $175 ticket allowed supporters in at 7:30 p.m. when the champagne and caviar were all gone. (There was a long wait to enter at 6 and at 7:30 because so many bought their tickets at the door, and there were many complaints about the long wait for coat check.)

Serious shoppers ignore the drinks and the food on trolleys in the aisles, but by 7:30 the show is so crowded, it's hard to see the antiques. In those first two hours, however, some serious business is done. Marguerite Riordan, Leigh Keno, Fred Giampietro, Don Ellis, and Edwin Hild made multiple sales.

"I have never experienced the rush of sales from the minute the early preview began until the show closed that evening, and they kept the show open half an hour longer—they couldn't get the people out," said Ed Hild of Olde Hope Antiques. "And we sold a mix of things: a Savery chair, a painted chest, a tavern sign, an eighteenth-century folk portrait, a decorated Pennsylvania stepback cupboard, a sheet iron Indian weathervane."

Sales were strong again on Saturday, but they slowed during the week, though at midweek Hild sold a painted Lancaster County candlestand and some Odd Fellows lodge pieces. On the last weekend he moved a few accessories, some spatterware, and hooked rugs. "It amazed me that some people came back three and four times before they bought," Hild remarked.

Many of the items sold on opening night remained on view for the rest of the ten-day show, January 17-26. Dundas, Ontario, American Indian arts dealer Don Ellis, who has a flair for arranging striking sculptural objects in an artful way, keeps most of his booth intact until the end of the show. But a few dealers, Wayne Pratt for one, moved out their high chests and desks and replaced them with others. (This year, by vetting the replacement items before the show opened, there was no problem with quick replacements, and the vetting committee did not have to meet daily.)

This year's show wasn't as beautiful as in the old days when Barry Ferguson did the flowers, and there were more dramatic installations. Mario Buatta, who was show chairman for 17 years, was both a designer and a merchant, and his eye is missed.

That is not to say there weren't some handsome booth designs, including those of Don Ellis, Frank and Barbara Pollack, Guy Bush, Joan Mirviss, the Schwarz Gallery, and Anthony Stuempfig. Hirschl & Adler Galleries had 12é ceilings to accommodate a spectacular chandelier. Women who came just to look during the week were overheard commenting on the wall colors and the room arrangements. But that's not what the show is all about. It's about selling antiques, and if the dealers do not sell, then the charity will not benefit.

In prior years the Americana auctions tailgated the show. This year, however, it seemed as if the show tailgated the auctions. Sotheby's Keene sale wasn't over until five o'clock the afternoon the show opened. It was impossible for a journalist to cover both the auctions and the Winter Show press walk. Moreover, Sotheby's scheduled a dinner honoring Detroit collector Stan Sax for Thursday night, so a group of important collectors went to the dinner and didn't come to the show's preview at all. Perhaps they came the next day, late in the afternoon after the auction.

The auctions, lunches, dinners, and presale viewings left little time for show-going. Sotheby's auctions were on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday afternoon, and Christie's were all day on Saturday. Those who wanted to check out the Classicism show at Alexander Gallery, or Stella's Antiques at the Other Armory show at 23rd and Lexington, or Wendy's Convent of the Sacred Heart show during the first weekend of the Winter Show had little time to get back to the Seventh Regiment Armory at 67th Street.

Holding all the Americana auctions on the first weekend, with previews the week before the show opened, was suggested to Sotheby's and Christie's by Leigh Keno, acting on behalf of the dealers, who complained that auctions held the second weekend, especially those held on the last Sunday of the show (generally Super Bowl Sunday), made customers hold back spending until after the auctions and that collectors unsuccessful in the salesroom had no time to come back and spend their money at the show. It seemed logical to reschedule all the sales at both auction houses for the first weekend, but it didn't work for the show.

Moreover, there was so much to see at the auctions this year—more than 2000 lots of furniture and decorations at Sotheby's and about 500 at Christie's—that by the time the Americana collectors and dealers had seen it all, they were bleary-eyed and staggered into the show. By then, collectors and dealers had spent nearly $25 million at the Americana auctions, went home exhausted and broke, and never came back to the show.

"I much preferred it when collectors stayed around all week," said Connecticut dealer Marguerite Riordan.

"Our clients left on Sunday, and they used to be here all week," commented Mary Beth Keene of Wayne E. Pratt, Inc.

Although New Yorkers kept coming back to the show during the entire run, and some out-of-towners arrived later in the week when the show was not crowded, the dealers said they were not sure the right people came. They complained about the public relations. A story in the New York Times on Thursday, describing the show as having "largely unsurprising wares" and saying the "once bright exhibition appears to be sliding into blancmange [a flavored and sweetened milk pudding thickened with cornstarch]," hardly encouraged the gate. A CNN feature on the show ran the Tuesday after the show closed. What good did that do?

The design of the loan exhibition was severely criticized by dealers, the press, and show-goers. Eight 12é tall display cases modeled after New York City apartment houses held "Object Lessons: 100 Years of Collecting. Celebrating the Centennial of the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum...." The structures blocked the view of the dealers on the center aisle, who paid more per square foot than others for their space. Some of the objects in the cases might not have passed the vetting committee, such as an American child's side chair, said by many dealers to be a fake.

The Winter Show is always being compared to Anna and Brian Haughton's far more elegant International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show in October and their brilliant, specialized International Asian Art Fair in March, which have a more serious focus and a more sophisticated, attractive, and welcoming ambiance. Unlike the Haughtons' shows, the Winter Show is a charity benefit every day of its run, which explains why the flowers are not as profuse or the design as spacious. Moreover, dealers who do both shows admit they bring lesser material to the Winter Show. That said, there was still very little to buy priced under $1000.

A bid to exhibit at the Armory in January used to be a coveted invitation for dealers, but the cost of doing the show has apparently gone out of control, and director Catherine Sweeney had some trouble filling the booths this year. That may be why there were seven dealers with American Indian material—too many—though they said sales were good. If this show is, as touted in press releases, the premier Americana show, there need to be more dealers with spectacular American furniture and folk art.

Some Americana dealers said they sold well, some did not. Vetting has kept the bad things out and encouraged good labeling.

"We sold all our major furniture," said Leigh Keno, "a Massachusetts secretary bookcase, two-hundred-twenty-five-thousand-dollar asking price, a New York card table, one-hundred-forty-five-thousand-dollar asking price, and a Willard clock [$105,000 asking price]." The pair of New York chairs in his booth cost $78,000 because they were the best of their type. "They were the most fully developed tassel-backs with all the bells and whistles and an old finish," said Keno. "Each sale was to a different collector, and every collector was from out of town—from the South, the West and the Midwest—and one was a collector I had not sold to before."

Marguerite Riordan said she had a good show, selling a Bard painting, a fine needlework picture, a chest of drawers, and a stretcher-base table. Wayne Pratt said he made all his sales the first weekend, selling a highboy, two lowboys, a blockfront desk, and a set of Windsor chairs—some to new clients. Arms specialist Peter Finer, English furniture specialist Hyde Park Antiques, Arts and Crafts dealers Cathers & Dembrosky, American country furniture and folk art dealer Olde Hope Antiques, and Indian arts dealer Don Ellis apparently all had very good shows. Prints, maps, and jewelry also sold well. The quality of the material at this show is high, even at a time when it has become harder and harder to get good material.

"I don't know what the correct answer is to scheduling the auctions," said Keno, who is on the new exhibitors' committee, as is Peter Pap, Barbara Israel, Robert Wilkins, Michael Goedhuis, and Mark Jacoby (chairman). "I don't know which way it works better; perhaps next year we should try a different approach. John Hays and Bill Stahl [Christie's and Sotheby's Americana specialists] are willing to talk to us about it. It is true, people who used to stop by the show when they came to see the auction exhibitions didn't come to the show this year."

Nevertheless, the show is a catalyst for business. Tony Stuempfig said he had a lot of sales pending, to both collectors and museums. Pratt said that even though he didn't sell his Salem highboy during the week, he had serious interest the week after the show.