56th Annual Winter Antiques Show

With the holidays and travel I let January slip me by but I am back and rejuvinated from the break. This past week I attended the 56th annual Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory. This is one of my favororite events as you can take in so many areas and disciplines under one roof.


Americana at the booth of Nathan Liverant


Inspired garden installation from Barbara Israel Garden Antiques


Arms and armor in the booth of London dealer Peter Finer

In all it was an inspired collection of exhibitors where one could satisfy most collecting habits at a variety of pricepoints. But as my readers know by now, I have a particular fondness for tracing the ebb and flow of art as it passes from one hand to another and how that illuminates the workings of an often complex art market. With this in mind, I was not let down when I made it to the booth of the Manhattan gallery Lost City Arts.


Lost City Arts

Lost City Arts was largely filled with choice works by the craft icons Harry Bertoia, George Nakashima and Paul Evans. But it was a particularly horizontal Bertoia Sculpture that got my wheels spinning.

I recognized it immediately from the Collection of Robert Isabel sold at Sotheby's in December. It has distinctive oxidization patterns to the base that I recalled when it was on display at Sotheby's. The Isabel sale was a great success and this lot performed quite well making $92,500 against a conservative estimate of $50,000-70,000. Well, if it slipped through your grasp at the auction it can still be yours via Lost City Arts but it will cost you...$180,000 to be specific. This is why I always encourage collectors to attend auctions especially if they have been comfortable paying retail in the past. It can definitely provide more bang for your buck and thus for your collection as a whole.

Robert Isabell: Garden of Mid-Century Delights

For years I have secretly coveted the forbidding ivy-clad little townhouse at 16 Minetta Lane. I knew that it belonged to the rather elusive event designer Robert Isabell but I had no clue what treasures were secured behind that little iron gate. I knew of Robert third-hand through friends and colleagues and erroneously suspected that his home would be the typical town and country affair: acres of mahogany, gilding, Jansen, Bagues, Limoges boxes with catchy phrases etc. all tied together neatly with chintz. Shortly after his untimely death this summer came the announcement that Sotheby's 20th Century Design department would be honoring his collection with a single owner sale. The catalogue went online last week and all fell into place. It is predominantly a Paul Evans, Phillip Lloyd Powell, George Nakashima and Harry Bertoia affair. It makes sense as these studio artist's works strangely mesh rather well together. While Evans and Powell's furniture can tend to be be brutal and overbearing at worst, Isabell chose more organic and textured designs that were layered cleverly with mini-collections of Bertoia and Ihlenfeld botanical bronzes with great effect.


The 128 lot sale is estimated to bring $1.5 million and proceeds will benefit the Gerald B. Lambert Memorial Foundation, Inc. for the sole purpose of maintaining and preserving the Oak Spring Garden Library and Greenhouses in Upperville, VA. This seems rather fitting since Isabell's eclectic home comprised a townhouse linked to a carriage house via a glass roof creating a four-story greenhouse atrium...all without air conditioning evidently. I wonder what this atmosphere has done to the condition of the largely wood and metal artworks...we shall see when the exhibition begins on December 12th. It appears that Isabell's architectural vision has been unpalatable in this market as the home was listed with Massey Knakal initially at $3.9 million and suffered two price reductions; $3.4 million and then to $2.85 million and is now under contract. I am very interested to see the next incarnation of this great West Village abode.

As a final aside, when I was pouring over the listing information provided by Massey Knakal I noticed one of the rooms contained a monumental Piero Fonasetti "Architettura" bureau-bookcase (below, right). It is a wonderful and imposing piece and is worth $20,000-30,000, but failed to make the cut as it was omitted from Sotheby's sale. Perhaps it was bequeathed to a lucky person in Isabell's insular world...we shall see.