Author: Michael Chappell

First thing, browse the newly designed website for the Jackson Square Art and Antiques Dealers Association.

Whingeing about the fate of the art and antiques venues worldwide is an essential but hardly a favorite topic, despite the numbers of times this has been the subject of my blog. The nature of the trade, with requisite expertise in buying stock and selling settled in only one or two individuals, necessarily limits nearly all dealers to the ranks of small business. Indeed, given the type of material that some dealers sell, to whom they sell it, and where they sell it makes it appear they are big players. The where they sell it, now and recently, has become a real problem. The competition from mass market luxury goods manufacturers, mainly in the world of fashion, increases rents in a number of what were traditionally the best art and antiques venues. That a retailer that yields more in turnover can afford to pay more rent is certainly not a surprise. I hesitate to cite any figures, but let us safely assume that the fashion retailers’ inventory turnover of 4 times a year is considerably more than that of the best art and antiques dealers. Moreover, no dealer could ever sell that quickly, as, unless he’s planning to go about of business, he could never as quickly obtain replacement stock.

We have heard the argument made that higher traffic retailers do just that, bring more trade into the neighborhood and presumably more foot traffic into adjacent, established galleries. Not likely. The numbers of buyers for the $5,000 couture evening frock are far inestimably more numerous than those for the six or seven figure antique or work of art. For us, no question about it, what brings in traffic that are more than just browsers are the dealers that are nearby. The notion of a crossover buyer that does not exist between luxury mass marketer and gallery exists in spades between galleries.

All this was brought to mind reading a little squib about the tax increases felt most significantly by a small group of antiquarian booksellers in a small but centuries old venue in London’s West End. With all of them small in size and individually owned, they are an easier target for any sort of predation than a large, publically held company that can afford to fight back- or, more likely, give pause to anyone that sought to pick them out as a financial target. In the case of London specifically and the UK generally, there is an awareness that art and antiques venues constitute an important part of the nation’s cultural heritage, and there is a movement afoot to provide some sort of protection, including tax relief, to allow dealers to afford to carry on in business. Hopefully this effort will bear fruit before it’s too late. Even for those who can financially afford to carry on, we’ve seen too often in the last few years that sometimes it is just a matter of a much-harried dealer throwing in the towel.

Whether it is Bond Street in London, the Quai Voltaire in Paris, or Jackson Square in San Francisco, and we can all name plenty of others, venues form a fascinating part of the urban landscape and, local government take note, should be cherished.

The redoubtable Brian Haughton sent out an email blast today, the formal announcement of his new fair ‘Art Antiques London’, scheduled for 9 to 16 June. The venue will be a marquee in Kensington Gardens, opposite the Royal Albert Hall. Time will tell, for Haughton and the 60 dealers he promises in attendance, what this venue will bring. It has worked for decades for the Proms, so who knows?

Although an exhibitor list is not yet forthcoming, one presumes a good selection of English antiques. What is not apparent yet is the competition for those dealers amongst the newly reorganized Olympia fair, and what might still emerge as a son of Grosvenor House, its organization still being talked over amidst the former Grosvenor House grandees. For myself, visiting the fairs on my own and with clients, two running simultaneously was all I could hope to take in. More than that- it can be too much of a good thing. Moreover, not all London dealers participate in even the local fairs. Antiques shoppers, whether they be other dealers, collectors, or interior designers appear finite in number and those from abroad also wish to take in some of the non-exhibiting London and countryside galleries and salesrooms. Their time, patience, shoe leather, and money is finite, too. It remains to be seen what the new bevy of fairs will offer, besides good quality dealers, that will make the upcoming London antiques season stand out. Lacking an extravaganza that attracts a goodly number of new buyers, the fairs may find they’ve done not much more than dilute the fairs’ effect, with the same number of punters spread around more venues.

Our holidays are usually of the busman’s variety- visits to antiques fairs, stately homes, and other sites of cultural interest, with a heavy emphasis on the fine and decorative arts. It’s what we do…

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Still, popular culture sometimes sneaks in front and center, and this time, it is ‘A Christmas Carol’, released in cinemas last week. The linkage with English antiques is more than just the effect of them in computer animated 3-D. The graphics derive from actual pieces, including (wait for it)- a pair of George III period paktong candlesticks from our own vaunted galleries.  I can’t say we have yet gone to see the movie, and the loan of a pair of candlesticks hardly qualified us to stand on the red carpet with Jim Carrey. Perhaps one of my loyal cadre of blogophiles will let me know if the candlesticks are prominent.

Apologies to Monty Python, but hope that my blog title puts you in mind of the best of Python, specifically the dead parrot sketch and the lumberjack song. A sidebar, I was astonished to find my nephew and gallery assistant Jack Tremper did not know of either. Keith and I will have to bear this in mind when writing his annual performance evaluation.

Not so clever as John Cleese, Michael Palin, et al, but they won’t mind my cribbing their tagline and applying it to the October just concluded. What is it about that month? Financially, everything comes crashing down, and even when it doesn’t, it is nonetheless something everyone braces for, and purchases of English antiques, and everything else under the sun, are postponed. Surprising to hear some positive preliminary retail sales numbers. Interestingly, for us sales barely came together for the month, with the majority of them with invoices signed in the last few days of the last week. We were, as a consequence, able to purchase Halloween candy. Since we haven’t had anyone actually trick or treat in the last five years, our purchase was clearly because we were at last feeling sunnier about things. Mind you, ‘sunnier’, not ‘euphoric’, and consequently our candy came from the grocery store, not Godiva.

Our sense is that November is off to something completely different, and a good start for all of us, and that might manifest itself for Chappell & McCullar into a couple of dining table sales- and chairs, and sideboards, and breakfronts- in advance of the holidays. We hope so, anyway- I would really like to have turkey for Thanksgiving and not leftover Halloween candy.

My last couple of entries, musing about the fate of antiques fairs, has sparked a couple of emails, suggesting that, as antiques don’t seem popular with young adults, more must be done to educate them. With few exceptions, most fairs now have some sort of early evening event for so-called ‘young collectors’, usually involving those under 40- that is young, isn’t it?- whose affiliation with a local fine arts museum auxiliary entitles them thereby to be admitted sometimes gratis to the fair, and have a free glass of wine. Actually, we have been at some fairs where young collectors’ nights have attracted as many as two handfuls of attendees.

Sorry for being snide, but, as you will gather, our own experience, certainly in terms of selling English antiques in a young collectors venue has not met with any particular success. When told of a scheduled young collectors event, a dealer of my acquaintance sighed and said, ‘Oh yes- the young and the cheque-less.’ Now that’s snide, albeit clever. An irony, my quoted punster deals in midcentury modern furniture, the erstwhile darling of the young collector.

We hear that, you know, that antiques are out of fashion, that the young have no appreciation of the fine arts, that contemporary is where it’s at. Tell this to a dealer in any contemporary material- he’ll take some exception, and sing the blues, too.

The fact is, in our experience, collectors segue from wannabes to actuals at their own pace and in their own good time- regardless of any manifest effort toward education a dealer may make. We get this all the time from gallery visitors, how much they value our expertise, how educational it is to look at our gallery offerings. Does a sale automatically follow on from these compliments about our being a fulsome didactic resource? Not so far. Or should I say, ‘Not yet.’ I mean no irony here, as I do think that there is some seed planting that all of us do, or should be doing, to allow people to develop their own aesthetic that may then ultimately result in a few purchases.