CINCINNATI – Wes Cowan, president and principal auctioneer of Cowan’s Auctions, and Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio, both of Clark + Del Vecchio Gallery in Santa Fe, N.M/, have announced a partnership to bring modern and contemporary ceramics to the international art market through focused, selective and scholarly semiannual auctions. LiveAuctioneers.com provides Internet live bidding for all Cowan’s sales.
The planned 20th-century and Contemporary Ceramics auctions will blend Cowan’s stellar reputation as an auction house with Clark and Del Vecchio’s impeccable credentials as writers, critics, historians, curators and consultants to leading museums, as well as 30 year’s experience as top ceramics dealers. The first of the new auctions, scheduled together with a daylong seminar on the ceramics marketplace, will take place sometime in the fall.
“The decision to have this happen outside New York was guided by two factors,” Clark said. “We did not want to live in the shadows of the New York modern and contemporary art sales and we needed a venue with historical connections to ceramic art. In 1876 Cincinnati became the birthplace of modern ceramic art in America. What could be more apropos?”
The auctions will be focused around studio pottery and ceramic sculpture from 1918 to the present, but will not include art pottery.
“We’re very excited about this unique opportunity,” said Cowan. “We’ve all been thinking about an auction venue focusing exclusively on 20th-century studio and other ceramics, which has never been done before. It’s the perfect storm. Cowan’s has the reputation for honesty and integrity that Garth and Mark have been looking for in an auction house, and from my standpoint, I’ve rounded up the foremost scholars on the subject.”
Consignments for the inaugural auction will be accepted through August, with generous terms offered.
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About Cowan’s Auctions, Inc.
As one of the nation’s leading auction houses with sales approaching $20 million, Cowan’s has been helping individuals and institutions build important collections for more than a decade. The company’s four divisions of American History, American Indian and Western Art, American and European Fine and Decorative Art, and Historic Firearms & Early Militaria hold semiannual cataloged sales that routinely set records for rare offerings.
Through its extensive mailing list of more than 33,000 collectors, dealers and institutional clients, each Cowan’s auction typically attracts more than 1,000 bidders from across the globe. To learn more about Cowan’s visit our website at www.cowans.com.
About Clark + Del Vecchio
Garth Clark and Mark Del Vecchio founded Garth Clark Gallery in Los Angeles in 1981 and opened a second space in New York in 1983, at 24 West 57th Street. They were soon established as the preeminent international dealers in 20th-century ceramics and have organized eight major international symposia on ceramic history and criticism, published numerous books and catalogs and received a number of prestigious awards, both lifetime achievement and honorary doctorates. In addition Clark was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Art, London, and was the only practicing dealer to receive the College Art Association’s Mather Award for distinguished achievement in art journalism. They now live in Santa Fe and work as private dealers. They are in the process of organizing two traveling exhibitions, Christine Nofchissey McHorse and Diego Romero. Clark is in the process of finishing two books (his 52nd and 53rd), Lucio Fontana Ceramics and Homage To R. Mutt: Writing on Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain since 1917. To learn more about Clark + Del Vecchio visit www.clarkdel.com.
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