A Giant Opening Night
Alice Kaufman | October 24th, 2012
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This circa 1920 wood weathervane of a dog resting on a shotgun, with untouched, original paint, from American Garage, Los Angeles, cost $13,500. Michael Ogle said business was “really good.” These late 19th-century Odd Fellows badges cost $2400 for the group at Galen Lowe Art and Antiques, Seattle. This Japanese furoshiki (wrapping cloth) made from yukata (summer kimono) with a “precise indigo-dyed” willow pattern, from Kathleen Taylor’s The Lotus Collection, Jackson Square, San Francisco, measured 44" x 39" and cost $4000. How was attendance at the opening? “There were a lot of people at the Giants game.” |
San Francisco, California
By Alice Kaufman
San Francisco Fall Antiques Show creative consultant Lisa Podos would have bet money on it: the San Francisco Giants would win both the division and National League playoffs, even though the team was one game away from elimination in both series. The New York Times described the Giants’ wins as “overcoming long odds and undermining common sense.” Winning those games in that particular order earned the Giants a place in the World Series with game one scheduled for Wednesday night, October 24, 2012, in San Francisco. As fate and baseball would have it, that was also the date of the opening night preview party for the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show (called by the San Francisco Chronicle“the favorite fete of the Swell shopping set”).
“I was up the entire night before the preview,” Podos told M.A.D. “This happened two years ago, and I was devastated then.” This time she swung into action. The plan: set up a TV monitor in a side room so fans could watch the game; serve hot dogs from carts (which some of the guests accessorized with caviar from the main buffet); send out an e-mail blast to everyone concerned announcing the plan; and party on. “We did the opposite of canceling.”
Attendance was affected by the World Series. “Thursday was slow,” Podos said. “But there was an amazing energy on all the days, and dealers reported really good sales, especially on opening night and Sunday.”
Podos said the show’s nautical theme, “Sea Worthy,” was successful; “practically every dealer had something that fit the theme.” The theme was inspired by, and tied in with, the America’s Cup races, which will be defended in San Francisco in September, and the actual Garrard & Co. trophy was displayed at the preview party.
Michelle Goss, who works with Lisa Podos, is SFFAS cochair in charge of lining up exhibitors. She explained her job to M.A.D.: “I invite returning dealers, find replacements for those who don’t return, and make sure that the result is a nice mix that will appeal to San Francisco.” For 2012, “I had more choices than there were exhibit spaces.”
When asked about plans for SFFAS 2013, Podos told M.A.D. that 2012 was her last year with the show. “I miss the museum world and am looking for a new direction.” By the way, the Giants won the World Series in four straight games, and the SFFAS closed the night of game four, three days before the parade.
For more information, go to (www.sffas.org).
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Ahna Petersen of Yew Tree House Antiques, New York City, said she sold eight pieces to a Seattle interior designer and client at the opening night party. She sold to a well-known San Francisco interior designer that night too. This was her second year at the SFFAS and her 24th year in business. This American or English mid-19th-century shipboard/folk art trade sign of Chieftain Rochester was discovered in a storage room at University of Oxford and priced at $69,000. Although sales at the opening were “fabulous,” as of day three of the four-day show, there had “been nothing since.”
In keeping with “Sea Worthy,” the nautical theme of the show, Daniel Stein of Jackson Square, San Francisco, was exhibiting this 18th-century Italian school Venetian scene. The large (48½" x 76") painting “has great composition and tells a great story” and cost $12,500.
William Cook of Berkshire, England was asking $38,500 for this 19th-century West Indian satinwood dressing table, with original decoration. The table’s twin is in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, England.
This circa 1890 40" x 51" wool rug, from the Ames Gallery, Berkeley, California, cost $4800. The gallery’s Bonnie Grossman said attendance on Thursday, the show’s first full day, was “dismal: everyone was at the Giants game.”
This circa 1890 Victorian brass infant bassinet, from Eve Stone Antiques, Woodbridge, Connecticut, cost $3900.Originally published in the February 2013 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2013 Maine Antique Digest
