Stories for December '15
(Young Collectors)Gifts That Keep On Giving
The Young Collector
Ah, the season of gifting is upon us. Hooray, some of you are thinking. What fun. We’re sorry. We’ll try to make this as painless as possible, which is going to take some work because gift giving has, for many people, become a painful, protracted process that leaves ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Stolen Darwin Book Returned to Canada
A stolen first edition of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life byCharles Darwin has been returned to Canada. The book, published in 1859, had been stolen from Mount Saint Vincent University Library in Bedford, Nova ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)New Website for Painted Plaster Walls Center
A new website (www.wpcenter.org) for the Center for Painted Wall Preservation (PWP) has been created for use as a resource by owners of painted plaster walls in New England. The new site will also serve as a clearing house for artists, conservators, and preservationists to document their research into the ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Henry Sheldon Museum and Historic New England Team Up
The Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury, Vermont, and Historic New England have formed an alliance. The alliance between the two organizations, both devoted to historic preservation, history, art collections, and heritage interpretation, caps a multiyear collaborative partnership in exhibits. Historic New England’s traveling exhibitions Take Me to ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)John and Lisa Hauenstein, Early Preservation, Charlotte, Vermont
In the Trade
Some people just make you feel inadequate. An afternoon I spent recently with John Hauenstein had that effect on me.
Hauenstein and his wife, Lisa, do business as Early Preservation and work out of what appears to be a perfectly restored early 19th-century Vermont farmhouse set among 15 acres ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Old York Receives Grant to Conserve Colonial Crewel Embroideries
The Old York Historical Society/Museums of Old York in York, Maine, has received a grant of $35,000 from the Coby Foundation, Ltd., New York City, to conserve the historic Bulman bed hangings for reinstallation in 2016.
Created by Mary Swett Bulman (1715-1791) of York, Maine, in the 1730s, the textiles are ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Wallace Hall Show to Return
In January 2015 Debbie Turi and Brad Reh, who called their business Reh Turi Shows, launched a new antiques show during Americana Week in New York City, the Art, Design & Antiques Show at Wallace Hall. The partnership of Turi and Reh has been dissolved, but the show will continue.
Brad ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Good Fellows: The Walpole Society
Part II of V
Photos courtesy the Walpole Society
“He buys ‘like a Prince’ what he wants. He does not ‘pussyfoot,’ ‘soft pedal,’ or haggle. What he feels is beyond his reach or excessive in price is simply left alone, and he is so modest that he does not continually talk about ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)VMFA Hangs Its West and Gets Major Donation
A portrait of young Prince William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh (1776-1834), and his elder sister, Princess Sophia (1773-1844) of Gloucester, by American painter Benjamin West (1738-1820) was recently installed in the McGlothlin American Galleries at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) in Richmond. The portrait was acquired ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Ships, Clocks, and Stars: The Quest for Longitude
Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Connecticut
41 degrees, 21 minutes, 20 seconds North by 71 degrees, 57 minutes, 50 seconds West. This is the global “address” of Mystic, Connecticut. Many of us know, from reading Dava Sobel’s 1995 best-selling book Longitude, that finding Mystic was not so easy for ship captains before John ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Two Elected to Board of Foundation for Appraisal Education
Allyson Bradley of Michaan’s Auctions in Alameda, California, and Matthew S. Wilcox of Freeman’s in Philadelphia have been elected to the board of directors of the Foundation for Appraisal Education (FAE), a Chicago-based organization founded in 2002 to raise scholarship funds for professionals seeking aid in the field of personal ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Grave Opinion
I question the morality of selling gravestones, as seen in a recent auction report in M.A.D. The gravestone sold was broken, yet it still held clues helpful to determining the identity of the person for whom it had been made. The name on the gravestone appeared to be either “Hannah” ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)The Wheel Keeps Spinning
Auction Law & Ethics
Sometimes all you can do is scratch your head and ask, “What the heck?”
Between September 2014 and September 2015, I wrote 13 columns covering the major aspects and issues of consigning to auction and offered numerous insights and tips for consignors. The same month that the 13th ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)South Florida Artist Sentenced to Five Years in $4 Million Counterfeit Currency Conspiracy
Artist Jean Phineas Losier, 41, of Wellington, Florida, was sentenced to five years in federal prison for conspiracy to deal in counterfeit Federal Reserve notes. A federal jury in Jacksonville convicted him in June 2015. Losier also faces counterfeit manufacturing charges in the Southern District of Florida.
According to court documents, ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Library Company's Madeira
In 1731, when Benjamin Franklin founded what is now America’s oldest cultural institution, the Library Company of Philadelphia, Madeira was already the rage. In 1786, when Madeira importer Henry Hill built Hill-Physick, his house at 321 South 4th Street in Philadelphia, Madeira was the wine of choice. In 1895, when ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Frick's Center for the History of Collecting Names Winner of Biennial Book Prize
The Frick Collection’s Center for the History of Collecting has awarded its biennial $25,000 book prize for a distinguished publication on the history of collecting in America to The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, in association with Yale University Press, New ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Washington State Approves Initiative Measure 1401 in Landslide
It wasn’t even close. On Tuesday, November 3, voters in Washington state approved Initiative Measure 1401, a bill to fight trafficking of animals, by a wide margin of 70.58% to 29.42%.
Initiative 1401 will affect the trade of any antiques that utilize any species of elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, lion, leopard, cheetah, ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)New Pier Show during Americana Week
Americana Week 2016 will include something that hasn’t been seen since 2013: an antiques show at the Piers. D’Amore Promotions will produce the NYC Big Flea Market on January 23 and 24, 2016, on Pier 90 in Manhattan. For more information, contact D’Amore at (917) 301-7708 or visit the website ... (Read More)
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(Computer Article)Cataloging in the Cloud
Computer Column #324
John P. Reid, <[email protected]>
Cloud-based collection cataloging services were reviewed in the August 2012 issue. They operate over the Internet and require little or no software on the user’s computer except a conventional web browser. Many of these services have increased their features and scope. At least one has ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)George Eastman Museum Announces New Name
The George Eastman Museum is the new name of the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York. Founded in 1947, the institution is the world’s oldest photography museum. Its collection includes more than 450,000 photographs and includes the estates of Lewis Wickes Hine, Edward Steichen, Alvin Langdon Coburn, and Nickolas ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Firsthand Evidence
Editorial
California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed into law AB 1182, narrowing the California Secondhand Dealer Act from covering all items to applying only to frequently stolen items. It’s a big win for antiques dealers who faced burdensome regulations and a big win for CARRB, the California Association of Resellers, Reusers ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Maine Silver, Watches, and Jewelry: Makers and Dealers, 1760 to the Early 1900s
At more than 1300 pieces, the Maine State Museum’s collection of Maine silver is the largest anywhere. Over several decades, current and past Maine State Museum staff members and volunteers have carried out research, focusing on the development of the first comprehensive list identifying Maine silversmiths, goldsmiths, jewelers, silver platers, ... (Read More)
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(Book Review)Books Received, December 2015
These are brief reviews of books recently sent to us. We have included ordering information for publishers that accept mail, phone, or online orders. For other publishers, your local bookstore or a mail-order house is the place to look.
Collecting Children’s Books: Art, Memories, Values by Noah Fleisher and Lauren Zittle ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Exhibitions, December 2015
Maine Antique Digest includes, as space permits, brief announcements of exhibitions planned by galleries, museums, or other venues. We need all press materials at least six weeks in advance of opening. We need to know the hours and dates of the exhibit, admission charges, and phone number and website for ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Letter from London, December 2015
Ian McKay, <[email protected]>
Antiquities, mostly Egyptian and Roman this time out, provide the principal focus of this month’s selection. Also on the bill are the “Hope Spinel,” Churchill’s “Victory” watch, a golem, a lamp intended for use in card games, Lawrence of Arabia’s dagger (along with earlier edged weapons from India), ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Best Stand Award Winners at Winter Olympia Art & Antiques Fair
Dealers, do you need some ideas about booth design? The winners of this year’s British Antique Dealers’ Association (BADA) Best Stand Awards at the November 2-8 Winter Olympia Fine Art & Antiques Fair have been announced. The awards are given annually in recognition of outstanding design and presentation of stands ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Who Designed the Stickley Furniture Sold at Bonhams?
Rare and aesthetically arresting furniture by Gustav Stickley does not often appear on the auction market, but when it does there is keen competition. When a chair and a settle, both with copper and pewter inlay, were pictured in the catalog for a Bonhams sale of 20th-century decorative arts on ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Moonlight Dreadnought Tops Fishing Tackle Auction
Morphy Auctions in Denver, Pennsylvania, held its inaugural fishing tackle sale on October 24. The auction brought in approximately $560,000, led by a Dreadnought from the Moonlight Bait Co. of Paw Paw, Michigan, that sold for $29,280 (includes buyer’s premium), well above the $4000/7000 estimate. According to department head Joe ... (Read More)
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(Issue Story)Doyle's Jewelry Sale Featuring the Collection of Irving Gold
Antique Jewelry & Gemology
Photos courtesy Doyle New York
Doyle New York held its “Important Jewelry” auction on October 21. Featured in the sale was a collection of work by master jeweler Irving Gold, created for “artist and designer Judy Fleminger, his loving wife of 59 years,” that brought “strong prices,” according ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)A Bargain Boston High Chest
Passionate collectors leave no stone unturned. The most persistent find some treasures. One was among the contents of Oakendale, a grand Virginia house on 857 acres of rolling hills, tranquil ponds, and horse paddocks where Mary Sayles Booker Braga (d. 2014) spent the last years of her life.
The Braga collection, ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)Stoneware Cooler Sets New Mark
“It is the most exciting piece of stoneware I’ve ever seen,” said Tony Zipp at the podium before the Crocker Farm auction on October 17, concerning the opening lot. His sentiment was not mere hyperbole, as the firm was about to sell a seven-gallon stoneware cooler with an incised Federal ... (Read More)
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(Show)The September York Antiques Show
York, Pennsylvania
While hundreds of thousands of pilgrims headed for Philadelphia, hoping to see Pope Francis, hundreds of antiquers went to York, Pennsylvania, in search of their holy grail: the missing dish, urn, clock, cupboard, or painting that would complete a room, a shelf, or a collection.
Melvin “Butch” Arion’s 165th semiannual ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Ship Models and Nautical Antiques
Boston Harbor Auctions, Boston, Massachusetts
Photos courtesy Boston Harbor Auctions
Boston Harbor Auctions held a two-day marine antiques sale on September 26 and 27 at the company headquarters in the 99 High Street Office Tower in Boston. The top lot of the two-day sale was a company-built model of the iconic ocean ... (Read More)
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(Fragment)The NYC Big Flea
New York City
The second edition of the NYC Big Flea came to the Big Apple on the heels of Pope Francis’s visit, and good spirits and well-mannered crowds prevailed during the two-day show on September 26 and 27.
A steady stream of antiquers (including many vintage clothing and jewelry lovers) journeyed ... (Read More)
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(Show)The Indy Antique Advertising Show
Indianapolis, Indiana
The elastic nature of the Indy Antique Advertising Show was exemplified by a piece of stoneware for sale during the fall event, held September 25 and 26 on the Indiana State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis.
Offered by Frank Jastrzembski of Frank’s Toy Box, Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio, was a five-gallon crock having the ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Quinn's Launches New Name and Venue
Quinn’s Auction Galleries-Central Virginia, Troy, Virginia
Photos courtesy Quinn’s Auction Galleries-Central Virginia
Quinn’s Auction Galleries-Central Virginia conducted its inaugural furniture and decorative arts catalog sale on September 26. It was an occasion to introduce the firm’s new location as well as its new name. Quinn’s has leased a large building on U.S. ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Whistler Drawing Brings $413,000
Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, Chicago, Illinois
The September 25 sale of American and European art at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers in Chicago scored a happy note for paintings and other art. Generally of late, individual paintings—other than blockbusters—have been a hard sell. This sale of 300-plus lots told a more upbeat story.
Zachary Wirsum, ... (Read More)
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(Show)Adirondack Museum Antiques Show and Sale
Blue Mountain Lake and Indian Lake, New York
Photos by Betty Flood and Angelo Dounouclous
The Adirondack Museum Antiques Show and Sale in Blue Mountain Lake, New York, began on Saturday, September 19, and ran through Sunday, September 20. There was a benefit preview and early buying on Friday, September 18, from ... (Read More)
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(Auction)The Larry and Jake Show
L.T. Auctions, St. George, Maine
Lawrence Trueman has been in the auction business for a long time, operating L.T. Auctions since 1988. He and his wife, Diana, have settled in St. George, Maine, where they purchased the Echo Hill function hall, and that’s where the hammer comes down now.
By the way, ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Manuscript Book by Furniture Maker, Mormons, and More at Americana Sale
Swann Galleries, New York City
Photos courtesy Swann Galleries
A manuscript book of furniture designs and other details by an early 18th-century Philadelphia joiner was sold in New York City at Swann’s printed and manuscript Americana sale on September 17. Ledgers, yes. There are numbers of those by furniture makers of the ... (Read More)
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(Auction)The Lifetime Collection of Katie and Dennis Spann
Mike Clum Auctions, Rushville, Ohio
Photos courtesy Mike Clum Auctions
When the collection of the late Katie and Dennis Spann of Knoxville, Tennessee, was offered by Mike Clum Auctions on September 17 outside of Rushville, Ohio, the sale drew a full house of buyers who were attracted by the strong mix of ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Crystal Bridges Buys Top Lot at Sale of Maya Angelou's Art Collection
Swann Galleries, New York City
Photos courtesy Swann
Forty-four artworks from the personal collec-tion of Maya Angelou (1928-2014), poet, playwright, autobiographer, essayist, and performing artist, were auctioned before a joyful, jam-packed audience at Swann Galleries in New York City on September 15 for a total of nearly $1.3 million. Fourteen of the ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Lackluster Interest at American Indian Art Sale
Bonhams, San Francisco, California
Photos courtesy Bonhams
The empty spaces in the parking lot at Bonhams were the first clue about the possible success of the September 14 American Indian art auction of the collection of Mario Luraschi that was due to start in ten minutes. Inside the San Francisco salesroom, there ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Active Buying at CRN Sale
CRN Auctions, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Buyers packed the salesroom for the September 13 sale at CRN Auctions in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The audience was active and plentiful, and the phones were abuzz, as were absentee bids. Auctioneer Carl R. Nordblom told M.A.D. that Internet buying accounted for around 36% of sales.
As is usual ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Two Catalogs and Back-to-Back Auctions in Columbia
Charlton Hall Auctioneers, West Columbia, South Carolina
Photos courtesy Charlton Hall
Those who stayed for the entire two days, September 11 and 12, at Charlton Hall Auctioneers received a catalog for “International Antiques” and another for “Style + Design” lots. Most lots in the style and design catalog were estimated at under ... (Read More)
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(Auction)20th-Century Art and Design
Treadway Toomey Auctions, Oak Park, Illinois
Carefully built collections made the day for the September 12 sale at Treadway Toomey Auctions, Oak Park, Illinois. According to house specialists, interest generated by the dispersal of those collections resulted in a strikingly high sell-through rate. Fine art specialist Joe Stanfield called the sell-through ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Country Americana
Garth’s Auctions, Delaware, Ohio
Photos courtesy Garth’s
A portrait of a man by self-taught Alabama artist Bill Traylor (circa 1854-1949), mixed media on paperboard, sold for $31,200 (includes buyer’s premium) to top the country Americana sale held by Garth’s Auctions on September 11 in Delaware, Ohio.
Although sources disagree on his birth and ... (Read More)
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(Auction)The Hunger for 20th-Century Artworks Continues
Skinner, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts
Photos courtesy Skinner
Twentieth-century works were once again in high demand at Skinner. Prints by Andy Warhol, Edward Hopper, Sol LeWitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, and Frank Stella all did well at the fine art sale in the auction house’s Boston gallery on September 11. So did a ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Smith's Labor Day Auction
William A. Smith Inc., Plainfield, New Hampshire
Photos courtesy William Smith
“It was a fabulous sale. We had a great crowd,” declared a member of the William A. Smith auction staff the day after Smith’s annual Labor Day sale on September 7. Much of the material offered at this Smith auction was ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Foster Packs 'Em in Again!
Robert L. Foster, Newcastle, Maine
As Robert Foster summed up his September 5 and 6 auction in Newcastle, Maine, it was “a hell of a sale.” Nobody packs a gallery like he does, and his Labor Day weekend offerings always produce wall-busting crowds and noteworthy sales results.
Australian-born Martin Lewis (1881-1962 immigrated ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Maine Art Is the Main Thing at Thomaston
Thomaston Place Auction Galleries, Thomaston, Maine
By my count, Maine’s solid six-day block of auctions in the last week of August brought in over $7 million in total sales. Of that, about $2 million was claimed by Thomaston Place Auction Galleries on August 29 and 30 in Thomaston, Maine, where it ... (Read More)
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(Auction)A $4.8 Million Four-Day August Auction
James D. Julia, Fairfield, Maine
As always, James D. Julia’s four-day summer sale, held August 25-28 in Fairfield, Maine, was the centerpiece of Maine’s auction-filled last week in August. Only about 600 of the 2600-plus lots on offer didn’t change hands, and some of the misfires were on the top end ... (Read More)
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(Auction)Wyeth Letter Tops Ten Grand at Gamage Auction
Bruce Gamage, Jr. Antiques, Rockland, Maine
Bruce Gamage’s August 24 auction in Rockland, Maine, kicked off a solid week of end-of-summer sales in Maine, as Gamage played to a huge standing-room-only crowd in the spacious Elks Lodge.
Often it seems that everything with the Andrew Wyeth name attached to it has big ... (Read More)
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(Show)Antique American Indian Art Show
Santa Fe, New Mexico
“Stronger than last year,” said coproducer/owner Kim Martindale (with John Morris) about the Antique American Indian Art Show Santa Fe, held August 17-20 at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe in the Railyard District. The show was born in 2014 out of Martindale’s deeply felt belief that ... (Read More)
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(Show)Whitehawk Antique Indian Art Show
Santa Fe, New Mexico
In August there were at least four must-see shows in Santa Fe: two at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center located near the downtown Plaza and two at El Museo de Cultural, located in what PR people call the “arty” Railyard District, as well as several others ... (Read More)
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(Show)The Fifth Annual Objects of Art Show
Santa Fe, New Mexico
The annual Objects of Art show, owned and produced by Kim Martindale and John Morris (M2), has grown into one of August in Santa Fe’s most popular shows with both exhibitors and collectors. Mounted at El Museo in the Railyard District, the show has an eclectic mix ... (Read More)
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