notes

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.

Some blurb or other on the morning TV news about a decline in consumer confidence for the month of October. For those of us in the art and antiques trade, this comes as no surprise. Although we have billed out what Keith terms ‘little money’ over the course of the last few weeks, no big invoices, but we remain hopeful. We have had discussions with some of our better colleagues about why they are doing fairs just now, mindful of poor performance of the same shows this time last year and considering the present state of the economy. One colleague wondered aloud thereupon why then he is subjecting himself to additional financial exposure by doing the same show this year. Well, that is a question.

While promotion is key to a show’s success, one must still be mindful of what Keynes considered a central component of any economic cycle, ‘animal instincts’, which, frankly, is a grittier synonym for ‘consumer confidence’. No one can really point to anything that affects it, but, ultimately, it is this that will make conditions change- one way or the other. Apparently one can apply statistical measures to animal instincts, but this doesn’t make them any more predictable.

However, fairs do go on, and sort of paraphrasing Knute Rockne, in a poor season, one always says one was at least building character. While of course those remaining few of us in the English antiques trade are mostly trying to figure out how to cover the overhead, Keith and I yet make a point in engaging in some strategic thinking- changes in market conditions, appropriate pricing, and changes in fashion and aesthetics, all of which we need to factor into our business to make it always appear fresh and viable. We are, of course, still a going concern. Nothing spells disaster for a business than that its appearance starts to match the (dismal) outlook of the owner.

And this is what is always necessary for an antiques and art fair, even in tough times. Constant reinvention is called for, to give the fair a fresh look. Mind you, not an entirely new look. A couple of years ago, one prominent fair rather abandoned its focus on antiques, and, since it had dropped its dateline to allow midcentury modern furniture in, went overboard in redesigning the show in using 20th century design as its theme. An aesthetic disaster which resulted in the show wisely returning to something more traditional the following year.

No strong intelligence yet on the success of the International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Fair, concluded Thursday of last week. Those intrepid dealers who participated, those we spoke to anyway whose focus is English antiques, seemed to subscribe to the same credo as whoever wrote The New York Times headline, something along the lines of ‘Fair forges ahead despite hard times.’ Well, absent forging ahead, what does a body do?

Time will, as it always does, tell, but news that may at least take the fair’s temperature should be quickly forthcoming, as some material does tend to sell at shows. Jewelry for one, and some smaller items. Copper and brass, prints, and, I hate to use the word, collectibles, certainly pieces at impulse buy level, or, in the case of prints, where an interior designer may seek to create a series of something. Art work and larger pieces of furniture, even irresistible English antiques pieces, are, I admit, a bit tougher, as the purchaser needs just the right space, or with art work, it has to speak to the buyer. In our experience, art work in particular, if it sells at a show, is something that is already in play with the buyer, oftentimes for many months previously. With all that, a fair number of smaller at show sales portends some fairly good aftershow activity for dealers of other types of material that is less of the impulse buy variety.

And, of course, it is getting interested buyers to turn out that is the name of the game, and ultimately, yields a successful show. We haven’t always done well at fairs with a big gate, but our overwhelming experience has shown us, no question, it is a numbers game, and by sheer weight of numbers, the larger the attendance, the better the chance of sales, either at show or following. Keith and I have often laughingly repeated what a show promoter told us during the run of a poorly attended show- ‘Not many visitors, but those who are here are very qualified.’ Hardly good enough- we require lots and lots of qualified buyers attending.

While the organizer/promoters’ promotion is imperative, it is not solely the show promoters’ responsibility to perform this essential task. No argument, those who participate need to have a firm understanding with the promoter what it is that’s planned- and how much the promoter plans to spend to promote the show. Any fuzziness- well, that may not be the show a dealer wishes to do. Still, asking the tough questions is only part of it. Any dealer who doesn’t spend a significant amount of time performing his own promotional tasks gets what he deserves. A dealer who does not mine his existing sales contacts to inform them of his show participation is either lazy or foolish or both. Why on earth would one not just out of sheer politeness inform past customers that they will be in the customers’ neighborhood? Further, all of us anymore sell to interior designers- let them know and search for other local designers who might use your material, and inform them, too, of your impending presence. Likewise institutional collectors. Museums do make the more than occasional antiques fair purchase.

A goodly number of fairs still retain a charity component to them, either a preview gala or part of the gate benefits some worthy cause. That is fine, but, times being the way they are, the participating dealers need to benefit now more than ever from the charity’s efforts. It has been lost sight of, unfortunately, that the charity show has always been considered a symbiosis- the dealers provide an attractive venue that the charity then utilizes as a space for an expensive gala- with the great and the good attending free to make purchases from the dealers. If the charity is not doing their utmost to generate attendance at at least the gala, perhaps a new charity needs to take over, or a dealer might rethink their involvement with that charity’s fair. Moreover, it has always seemed to me that an underutilized strategy is to have multiple fair beneficiaries- with multiple charity evenings for multiple charities. The fair itself is all set up for days and doesn’t cease to be a wonderful venue for events. With all that, if one benefit charity believes that other charity events will create an overlap and compete for possible attendees, charities should think then about making more of an effort to offer sponsorship events to private enterprise. So often, charities will ask for sponsorship, put the donors name in the show catalog, and, upon giving gala preview tickets to the great and the good, decide to call it a day. Why shouldn’t the perk for the great and the good be a private preview for themselves and their own good clients?

Finally, in these days of celebrity interior designers, any good fair that does not have an evening designer only event is not a good fair. Designers need to feel catered to and that their business is worthwhile, and it is. Moreover, designers unless they are shopping for or with a client oftentimes do not always make it a point to attend fairs. We have heard from charities that designer only events in particular are felt to run competition with benefit preview parties. I have never, ever found this to be true. In fact, just the opposite has been my experience. A number of fairs for a number of years have held designer only ‘hard hat’ previews, run in advance of the gala preview, at which designers could attend on their own, have something to eat and drink, and scout out the show. With a typical prohibition against actually selling anything at a hard hat preview, the designer then is obliged to bring his client back at the earliest opportunity. That earliest opportunity is almost always the charity gala. The moral of the story, for those of you who have not already figured it out, the designer and their client(s) would not have attended the gala preview had the designer not had the opportunity to shop the show beforehand.