Canterbury Shaker Village as depicted on a 1920 postcard, courtesy Wikipedia.

NHADA hosting new fall show at Canterbury Shaker Village

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Canterbury Shaker Village as depicted on a 1920 postcard, courtesy Wikipedia.

Canterbury Shaker Village as depicted on a 1920 postcard, courtesy Wikipedia.

CANTERBURY, N.H. – The New Hampshire Antiques Dealers Association (NHADA) has enlisted promoter Nan Gurley to organize a new fall show under the group’s auspices. The Canterbury Shaker Village Antiques Show, to be held Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009, will feature 125 NHADA member dealers in a beautiful 20-acre hayfield setting. Most exhibitors will be selling under tents.

The Canterbury Shaker Village is a national historic landmark and museum in the town of Canterbury. The complex features 25 restored and four reconstructed Shaker buildings on a 694-acre site that includes gardens, fields, ponds and forests. Although located in the picturesque New Hampshire countryside, the village is only a few miles’ drive from the state’s capital city of Concord, and is easily accessible via two interstate freeways

Admission includes entrance to both the antiques show and the Shaker Village compound. Excellent food will be served by Shaker Village chefs.

“I have no doubt that this new show will be an unqualified success,” said Nan Gurley. “All of the right elements are in place – a great date, a spectacular location, and the best dealers.”

The New Hampshire Antiques Dealers Association is an organization of nearly 300 members that was founded in the early 1950s. The group includes many of the trade’s top dealers of Americana, primitives, early American furniture and folk art. Visit the NHADA’s Web site at www.nhada.org.

London Eye: March 2009

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This week saw the opening of the annual European Fine Art and Antiques Fair organised by the European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF) in the Dutch town of Maastricht. Every March the most prestigious international art and antique dealers assemble at the Maastricht Exhibition and Conference Centre to display their stock to the world’s wealthiest private collectors and leading museum curators.

Many Old Master dealers who show at Maastricht do 60 to 70 percent of their annual business during the two weeks of the fair. This year is likely to be the most important TEFAF fair for many years since it will offer an indication of the extent to which the global recession is affecting the upper echelons of the trade.

Meanwhile, a modestly priced art fair in London this weekend provided convincing evidence that the more affordable levels of the art trade are not just surviving the credit crunch but are actually enjoying improved business in the face of it. The Affordable Art Fair, which takes place twice a year in Battersea Park (in March and October), a stone’s throw from the fashionable and monied Chelsea and South Kensington districts, attracts art dealers from around the world, all of them offering art in the price range between £50 to £3000 ($70 to $4225).

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1903 E.S. Curtis photograph of Zuni governor, whose people lived in the Grand Canyon area of Arizona. From LiveAuctioneers.com Archive, courtesy Cowan's Auctions.

Archaeologists digging up Grand Canyon artifacts for preservation

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1903 E.S. Curtis photograph of Zuni governor, whose people lived in the Grand Canyon area of Arizona. From LiveAuctioneers.com Archive, courtesy Cowan's Auctions.

1903 E.S. Curtis photograph of Zuni governor, whose people lived in the Grand Canyon area of Arizona. From LiveAuctioneers.com Archive, courtesy Cowan’s Auctions.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) – Archaeologists are excavating sites along the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon in hopes of saving artifacts before they wash away.

Although the National Park Service typically leaves such artifacts alone, about 60 sites are being undercut by water, or unearthed by wind, topography, and a lack of sand, which is largely blocked from getting into the canyon by Glen Canyon Dam upriver.

National Park Service archaeologists and the Museum of Northern Arizona are working to uncover nine of the sites, which are mostly about 1,000 years old.

The excavation is costing about $1.2 million and is funded with fees visitors pay to enter the park. After the digs, the ruins of homes and granaries are being reburied by hand.

Along with the excavation of gaming pieces, pottery, a kiva and even a bone from a bison, the archaeologists are also mapping sediment, leading to the most complete picture of flooding in the Grand Canyon since the last ice age, said Jan Balsom, a deputy chief of science at the park.

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Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum construction site, 1959. Photograph by William Short. © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York.

Guggenheim exhibition explores Frank Lloyd Wright’s spatial concepts

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Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum construction site, 1959. Photograph by William Short. © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York.

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) at The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum construction site, 1959. Photograph by William Short. © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York.

NEW YORK – Opening May 15 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward is an exhibition about the significance of Wright’s thinking about space and the large impact this has had on the organization of modern life. Wright’s visionary work shows how space, architectural form from within, is a key element to any architectural design. Relying on human scale and a predetermined unit system for the placement of every feature and detail, Wright’s spatial organisms exhibit the eloquence of highly intuitive, yet surprisingly complex architectural forms.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Wright designed architecture not merely as a form to follow function; to him form and function are one, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a supreme example of this. Over the course of his 70-year long career, Wright developed a spatial language in which form outside became an integral expression of the spaces within a building.

In Wright’s works, walls can define and differentiate, but do not confine or obliterate space. He shaped continuous spatial experiences that freed up space and set an example of inspiring architecture for generations to come.

The more than 80 projects in Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward-ranging from privately commissioned homes and office, civic, and government buildings to religious and performance spaces as well as unrealized urban sites-accentuate Wright’s oeuvre as an architecture that encourages social interaction and integration with the natural world.

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Bobb Vann's ‘The Victorio Campaign' depicts Buffalo Soldiers in action in New Mexico in 1879-1880. The 1993 oil on canvas is 24 by 36 inches. © Bobb Vann. Image courtesy Booth Western Art Museum.

Contemporary artists shed light on black West

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Bobb Vann's ‘The Victorio Campaign' depicts Buffalo Soldiers in action in New Mexico in 1879-1880. The 1993 oil on canvas is 24 by 36 inches. © Bobb Vann. Image courtesy Booth Western Art Museum.

Bobb Vann’s ‘The Victorio Campaign’ depicts Buffalo Soldiers in action in New Mexico in 1879-1880. The 1993 oil on canvas is 24 by 36 inches. © Bobb Vann. Image courtesy Booth Western Art Museum.

CARTERSVILLE, Ga. (AP) – There’s mountain man Jim Beckwourth, legendary lawman Bass Reeves and Henry O. Flipper, the first black graduate of West Point.

Here, too, is the slave-turned-explorer, known only as York. And Stagecoach Mary, the cussing, gun-toting driver who delivered mail in Montana into her 70s. And Cathay Williams, who fought as William Cathay in the Army for two years before she was discovered to be a woman.

Now, these black figures and their contemporaries, who date back to the Civil War but were excluded from the American West narrative, are honored in more than 60 paintings and sculptures at the Booth Western Art Museum. The exhibit, called The Black West: Buffalo Soldiers, Black Cowboys and Untold Stories, runs through March 22.

Seth Hopkins, executive director of the museum and co-curator of the exhibit, said the show attempts to honor black life on the frontier.

“For everything that ever happened in the West, there were black people there at some point, doing the same jobs as everybody else, having the same experiences,” Hopkins said. “It’s just that they’re not in the history books, not shown in the movies too much and not represented in the
mainstream of Western art.”

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President U. S. Grant, image by either Mathew Brady or Levin C. Handy. Image courtesy Library of Congress via Wikipedia.

Nevada man thinks he has found early image of Ulysses S. Grant

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President U. S. Grant, image by either Mathew Brady or Levin C. Handy. Image courtesy Library of Congress via Wikipedia.

President U. S. Grant, image by either Mathew Brady or Levin C. Handy. Image courtesy Library of Congress via Wikipedia.

LAS VEGAS (AP) – A Nevada collector believes he has found a mid-1800s photographic image of Ulysses S. Grant, the Civil War general who went on to become the nation’s 18th president.

A University of Nevada, Las Vegas archivist says the daguerreotype appears to be an authentic image of Grant, who served two terms as president from 1869 to 1877.

Collector Randall Spencer said he would prefer to sell the image to a historical institution for public display, but would consider selling it to
a private collector to finance his search for vanishing images of U.S. history.

“I was told that the man who had these had bought stacks of daguerreotypes, and they were obviously from a collection because they were all the finest quality I have ever seen,” Spencer said.

Spencer, 56, is an alternative rock ‘n’ roll guitar player who performs under the name Eric London. In the 1970s, his day job was managing the Early American division for a large antique dealership. Later he started his own shop in California’s Bay Area.

“There was at that time still an abundance of Early American photography that had not been examined, especially in San Francisco, because when people went West in the mid-19th century, that’s where they ended up,” Spencer said. “And what really launched me into photography was discovering a picture of Mrs. Thomas Lincoln, Sarah Bush Lincoln, the stepmother who raised Abraham Lincoln.

Spencer thinks it was 1991, but remembers the date clearly: Lincoln’s birthday.

It had been discarded out of a sterling silver photo album that was put up for sale in the same store. He captured the image but wasn’t able to get the album.

That was the point when interest became obsession, Spencer said. He began poring over books and memorizing every known image he could find, captured in the 19th century dawn of photography, of any American historical figure.

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Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans' French Quarter, where ACNA members will gather Jan. 10-13, 2010. Image courtesy ACNA.

ACNA’s 2010 convention to be held Jan. 10-13 in New Orleans

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Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans' French Quarter, where ACNA members will gather Jan. 10-13, 2010. Image courtesy ACNA.

Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans’ French Quarter, where ACNA members will gather Jan. 10-13, 2010. Image courtesy ACNA.

DAVIDSON, N.C. – The Antiques & Collectibles National Association owners Mike and Angie Becker have announced the dates for the association’s first national convention since 2005. ACNA members will meet in New Orleans on Jan. 10-13, 2010, using the Hotel Monteleone in the heart of the French Quarter as their home base.

The four-day Sunday through Wednesday meeting schedule, based on the theme “Help Your Future – Buy Your Past,” will be packed with educational classes, networking opportunities, a trade show and a shopping trip to Magazine Street, in the core of the New Orleans antiques district. Among the scheduled speakers and topics for the classes are: Kyle Husfloen, keynote address; Fred and Gail Taylor, antique furniture; Randy and Debbie Coe, glass; DiAnna Tindell, art restoration; Jim Mauzy, kitchenware; and Beth Walker, silver.

Formed in 1991 as the Antiques & Collectibles Dealer Association, the ACNA has evolved to where it now provides personalized services for shop owners, mall owners, show promoters and private collectors, as well as all levels of dealers.

The association offers an array of services to its members including property and liability insurance coverage for shop owners, mall owners, mall dealers, show dealers, show promoters and collectors, seminars, a quarterly newsletter, a discount on a home study program through Asheford Institute of Antiques, and credit card processing.

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Tom Purvis (1888-1959) Austin Reed Ltd 13 Fenchurch St. E.C, original poster printed circa 1927 - 152 x 101 cm framed. Estimate: $7,100-$8,500. Image courtesy Onslows Auctioneers.

Onslows to auction Austin Reed poster collection; iconic British ad images

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Tom Purvis (1888-1959) Austin Reed Ltd 13 Fenchurch St. E.C, original poster printed circa 1927 - 152 x 101 cm framed. Estimate: $7,100-$8,500. Image courtesy Onslows Auctioneers.

Tom Purvis (1888-1959) Austin Reed Ltd 13 Fenchurch St. E.C, original poster printed circa 1927 – 152 x 101 cm framed. Estimate: $7,100-$8,500. Image courtesy Onslows Auctioneers.

STOURPAINE, DORSET, U.K. – Onslows Auctioneers will offer the Austin Reed collection of posters and original designs by 1930s British designer Tom Purvis on Thursday, April 2. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live-bidding services for the event.

The collection numbers some 20 designs that were for many years displayed in the firm’s flagship clothing store in London’s Regent Street. Saleroom estimates range from $1,000 for an original design to $7,000 for one of the finest posters. The Austin Reed collection will be sold together with 200 lots of other vintage posters.

Tom Purvis’ posters are some of the most sought after by collectors in the United States and Great Britain. In 1990, Onslows auctioned the remaining contents of his studio. The sale set new records, with the beautiful London and North Eastern Railway’s Umbrella Girl poster selling for a record $7,700. Although Purvis had died in 1959, his widow Jane had kept his posters, drawings and paint brushes intact in his Oxfordshire studio.

In his day, the professionals who commissioned work from Purvis regarded him as the supreme British master of poster art between the wars. He was known as “the king of the hoardings (billboards).”

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Benefactor and philanthropist Leonore Annenberg in 2003. Image courtesy Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.

Philanthropist Leonore Annenberg dies at 91

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Benefactor and philanthropist Leonore Annenberg in 2003. Image courtesy Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.

Benefactor and philanthropist Leonore Annenberg in 2003. Image courtesy Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Leonore Annenberg, who as the widow of billionaire publisher Walter Annenberg continued his tradition of philanthropy and patronage of the arts, died Thursday. She was 91.

Annenberg died of natural causes at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, California, said family spokeswoman Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

Annenberg was chairwoman and president of the foundation, which is based in the Philadelphia suburb of Radnor and has a mission “to advance the public well-being through improved communication.” She had led the institution since her husband’s death in October 2002.

Annenberg was a trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a member of the acquisitions committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She also served on the Trustee’s Council of The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Longtime friend Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corp. of New York, described Annenberg as “a very classy person with a deep sense of civic commitment and an unparalleled social conscience.”

“It is unlikely we will ever know the full extent of the Annenbergs’ philanthropy because they did not seek publicity for their gifts and gave many anonymously,” Gregorian wrote in a statement Thursday.

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Action Comics No. 1. Image courtesy Scoop Online.

Rare Superman comic sells for $317,200

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Action Comics No. 1. Image courtesy Scoop Online.

Action Comics No. 1. Image courtesy Scoop Online.

NEW YORK (AP) – A rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman has sold for $317,200 in an Internet auction. The previous owner of Action Comics No. 1 bought it for less than a buck.

It’s one of the highest prices ever paid for a comic book, a likely testament to the volume’s rarity and its excellent condition, said Stephen Fishler, co-owner of the auction site ComicConnect.com and its sister dealership, Metropolis Collectibles.

The winning bid for the 1938 edition, which features Superman lifting a car on its cover, was submitted Friday evening by John Dolmayan, drummer for the rock band System of a Down, according to managers at ComicConnect.com.
In addition to being a musician, Dolmayan is a dealer of rare comic books. The auctioneers said he acquired the Superman comic on behalf of an unidentified client.

“I imagine it’s someone from the entertainment world,” said Vincent Zurzolo, chief operating officer at ComicConnect and Metropolis Collectibles.

Only about 100 copies of Action Comics No. 1 are known to exist and they seldom come up for sale.

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