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We've received more news from our own Mark Moran, who is at the Brussels Antiques and Fine Arts Fair, the second largest of such shows in Europe.

You can check out his latest pictures here.

And don't forget to check out: In European antiques trade, timing is everything

In the article, Mark talks with 20-year antiques veteran Victor Werner, who shares his insights in the antiques market.

This just in from the Edna Hibel studio:

Edna Hibel Studio Celebrates 50 Years

Edna Hibel’s first studio activity, a gallery in Rockport, Massachusetts, opened in 1960, making 2009 the renowned Edna Hibel’s 50^th year as a professional fine artist. "To celebrate this practically unprecedented milestone," says Hibel’s CEO Andy Plotkin, "Edna Hibel Studio will be offering special values to the public throughout the year." One way in which the public can take advantage of these special promotions is by visiting the Studio’s location at 1910 7^th Avenue in Lake Worth, Florida 33461.

Edna Hibel will also hold special exhibitions, such as the forthcoming art extravaganza and Hibel’s 92^nd birthday celebration at the Hibel Museum of Art on the FAU campus in Jupiter, Florida, on January 17 and 18, from 1 to 4 each day.

Special events will also be announced by e-mail and postal service. For more details, members of the public may call (800) 275-3426 or (561) 848-9633 and visit www.hibel.com.

Edna Hibel, 92, is one of America’s best-loved artists. She has been honored as the first American woman to win the coveted Leonardo da Vinci Award, and is a recipient of the National Women’s History Month Award. She has exhibited her paintings, stone lithographs, and sculptures in more than 20 prominent museums and galleries spanning four continents, including six national museums.

For her latest honor, Edna will unveil her newest painting, "Ode to Reading," for the Florida Governor’s Literacy Coalition in February in front of Barbara and President George H.W. Bush (the elder) and Columba and Governor Jeb Bush.

I perused the ProxiBid listing for this Official Auctions, Inc., auction. (Click here to take a peek here if you like.)

Lots of cars, coins & a wonderful variety of art.

Official Auctions, Inc., Huge Fine Art Auction- Saturday December 13th 2008 from 10:07 a.m. to 6 p.m. 3130 Wheeling Ave., Kansas City, MO 64129.

Large private collections featuring hundreds of original framed oils, prints, serigraphs.  Signed prints: Matisse, Dali, Rockwell Merkin, Max, Escher, more. Sculptures by Preiss, hand carved Hopi Indian art. Original oils by famous artists: Jansem, & Simari. Early American, European, and Western art. Pre-Columbian pottery. Other auction items: Antique one owner vehicles, 1950 Packard, 1972 Lincoln Mark-4, 1948 Harley. Rare collector coins, antique furniture, railroad collectors pieces. Simulcast online bidding. Online catalog www.oaiauctions.com  816-861-3700

This from Nicholas Forrest of ArtMarketBlog.com:

The Rise of the Value of Surrealism

There is no doubt that Surrealism is a highly undervalued and under appreciated movement that has the potential for a significant increase in desirability and value in the not too distant future for reasons that I will explain later on. The most famous Surrealist artist would have to be Salvador Dali with the other major Surrealist painters being Jean Arp, Max Ernst, André Masson, René Magritte, Yves Tanguy, Pierre Roy, Paul Delvaux, and Joan Miró. It is interesting to note that if you go to google and search for “dali auction record” (with quotation marks) you get no results but if you search for “warhol auction record” you get 47 results or if you search for “picasso auction record” you get 29 results. Even more interesting is the fact that the auction record for Picasso is US$104 million dollars and the auction record for Warhol is US$71 million dollars whereas the auction record for Dali is a mere US $3.6 million dollars. Is Dali any less important or an less talented than Picasso or Warhol? The other Surrealists don’t fair much better with Andre Breton, the father of the Surrealism movement, managing an auction record of US$3 million and most of the other major players achieving around the same prices for their Surrealist works with a few exceptions.

The most successful of those artists who dabbled in Surrealism based on the value of their work would have to be Joan Miro who has a current auction record of $16.7 million for the work ‘La caresse des étoiles’. According to the Christie’s catalogue entry for this work “It is a 20th century masterwork in the most profound sense, for in addition to its exceptional pictorial qualities as a work of art, it offers illuminating insight into the tragic drama of modern history in which it was created”. The phenomenal price achieved for ‘La caresse des étoiles’ can, however, be attributed to the history and provenance of the work, it’s cultural and historical significance as well as the fact that Miro chose not to become a fully fledged member of the Surrealist movement in order to remain free to experiment with other styles. For these reasons the price achieved for ‘La caresse des étoiles’ could be considered to be anomalous.

The main reasons that Surrealism has failed to achieve the same success as other art movements is that Surrealism is relatively ambiguous, ill defined and difficult to understand which make the works much less attractive. Also, many of the artists who produced work that is considered to be Surrealist were not solely dedicated to the pursuits of the Surrealist movement and did not adhere to the rules and regulations of the movement which makes the task of contextualising Surrealist artworks even more difficult. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica “The work of these artists is too diverse to be summarized categorically as the Surrealist approach in the visual arts. Each artist sought his own means of self-exploration”

Surrealism is, however, beginning to receive the attention and respect that it deserves which is being reflected in the market for Surrealist works.

From the good people at the Edna Hibel studio:

(By the way, if you haven't checked out her artwork, I encourage you to do so. She's a talented artist. You can see her work at www.hibel.com.)


The opening up of The People's Republic of China to the degree where it has welcomed the world inside its borders for the 29th Olympiad—hardly conceivable a scant thirty years ago—has occurred in small, incremental steps, beginning with the ping-pong diplomacy days of President Richard Nixon. In addition to sports, art has been instrumental in this increase of freedoms within China. Perhaps two important small steps toward China's increasing freedoms that have occurred along the way were the historic 1986 Edna Hibel art exhibitions in Beijing's China National Art Gallery, and Chongqing's Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts. These were the first exhibitions by a foreign woman in China.

Here is a brief history of what occurred in the aftermath of Edna Hibel's exhibitions in China, both of which were endorsed by then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, and then-Chinese Ambassador to the U.S.A., the Honorable Han Xu. (Other official endorsements came from then-Florida Governor Bob Graham, the then-American Ambassador to China, Winston Lord, along with officials from important American art institutions, such as the National Gallery of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.)

The Beijing opening of Hibel's exhibition was seen by many millions of Chinese on television. During the broadcast, the host said, "Hibel's beautiful art touched the hearts of the Chinese people." Several viewers from outlying provinces reported that they had sold their bicycles—their only mode of transportation—in order to travel to Beijing to view the Hibel exhibition.

Upon the conclusion of these historic Sino-American art exhibitions in 1986, China's Consul General to the U.S.A., Ni Yaoli, proclaimed to a large audience, "Edna Hibel has built a golden bridge between our two nations." Immediately, another exhibition invitation was extended to Edna Hibel by the Chinese government.

As an example of this "golden bridge," one of the paintings in Hibel's groundbreaking 50-year retrospective exhibitions in 1986 in China was a portrait of one of her classmates, Winnie Cheng, who returned to her native China shortly after the painting was completed in 1936. Winnie and Edna corresponded, but lost touch with each other after the start of WWII. As a result of the exhibition, however, a photograph of the Winnie Cheng painting appeared in a Shanghai newspaper.

Consequently, Winnie's son and grandson were found to be living in the U.S., and a tearful meeting was arranged where Edna learned that Winnie and her husband had died shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Edna then created a drawing of Winnie's grandson, William, which was slated to be used as a poster in "A Golden Bridge," the forthcoming Hibel exhibition scheduled for September 1989 in Beijing. Unfortunately, the Tiananmen Square incident intervened and that second Hibel exhibition in China did not take place.

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Here's a British article aimed a teeny, tiny little audience, but it's an interesting discussion just the same - especially if you have a few mil to throw at a Warhol...

Tinley Chojor was a very well-known name in Buddhist art circles.

Chojor painted many many beautiful things, among them the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monastery in Woodstock, NY, just across the mountain from where my best friend and his family had a house in the area, and where I spent many happy hours as a young man in my 20s.


Times Herald-Record/DEBORAH MEDENBACH

This is a picture of Chojor in Woodstock, takinga break from his work.

Chojor's awesome lines were second only to his deep belief in the philosophy he was charged with painting. He was a native to Tibet, who learned the art from his father.

This story is from the Times Herald Record, based in the Hudson Valley, where I lived for almost a decade.

I would say I'm sad, but not really. He had an amazing life and leaves behind an amazing legacy of great art - ceratinly the best at his craft in the states, if not all of the world. According to the Buddhist principles that Chojor based his life and art on, he's already moved on toward his next life.

Rest in peace to a great artist.

This is interesting and - dare I say it - sexy for the antiques industry.

From ArtInfo.com.

I wrote here not two weeks ago about the market in Russian art, followed by something about Muslim art, and shortly after that  Sotheby's has a huge sale of Russian art. Who buys it? Oh yes, Russians.

Except that one peice, and only one piece failed to sell for it's estimated amount. Why? It's alleged ties to the Russian Mob, and the death threats that came with its initial theft.

No picture available to my knowledgable, which might just push this thing mainstream. I hope that guy from CSI Miam is in in the pilot...

Yes. Very sexy.

This is pretty cool, especially considering that a) the philosophy of the Buddha was about the impermanance of all things and b) it's in Bamayan region of Afghanistan - well associated with the destruction of the giant stone Buddhas there by the taliban in 2001 - and these paintings are the earliest oils known.



This story is from Discovery News.

The giant stone buddhas are blown-up. Much gnashing of teeth. Seven years later, more, and rarer images show up in a hidden cave.

Afghanistan is so widely associated with Islam and the taliban, that it's easy to forget how important the region was in terms of the Buddhist way for several hundred years. It was a center of study and art and monasteries.

I hope these paintings are kept safe and sound. If not, never fear. It's all about impermanence anyway...

This is being sold by Philips De Pury on Thursday in London. There is a much better pic on the home page of the auction house. It is expected to take $160,000.

Don't know what I think of it, really. Just interesting.

It seems now that Islamic art is absolutely everywhere, and the amount of money that it's fetching - congruent with the amount of ire it's raising in some instances - is pretty amazing.

I've already written about it a few times this week and last week.

It started the attempted sale of some armor once, possibly, belonging to a revered Sikh Guru. Then a 12th century key to the holiest pilgrimage site in Mecca, and now, just yesterday, a dagger once belonging to Shah Jahan - arguably the greatest of India's Golden Age Mugal emporers - the man who built the Taj Mahal, and raised Islamic art and architecture to amazing levels in his reign, sold at Bonham's in London for nearly $3,000,000.



You have to admit, looking at it, that it's a thing of extraordinary beauty, made even more important by its provenance of having belonged to Shah Jahan, a man from whom very few personal relics survive. $3M seems like alot to spend, but as I wrote about the Hajj key yesterday, reclaiming cultural history is an expensive game, and them that have the bucks don't necessarily think of it as a numbers game. Face it, if you have all the bills in the Monopoly game, there's nothing on the board that's out of range.

Again, it went to an anonymous bidder who didn't wish to be identified. Who knows who it is, but most likely it was someone who was unhappy almsot 20 years ago when the Shah of Iran sold it to Jacques Desenfans, along with a lot of other things in the sale, on a visit in 1969, when the Shah's empire was just starting to wobble. That bit of its history has been more downplayed in the hubbub over its sale, but it's all part of the history of such a remarkable piece.

I'm not sure if the dagger is considered a holy relic, so I have no feeling on it being sold. If it is considered such, along with much of the other Islamic "art" that's been coming on the block, then I do have to take issue. Pieces of spiritual significance, whatever the faith, shouldn't be made available for a price. I have to think, though, the Shah Jahan dagger isn't considered spiritually important for Muslims, because there was no outcry, such as the one over the Sikh armor.



Shah Jahan's buildings and his name dot India, most notably the Taj, which he built as a masoleum for his wife, Mumtaz, when she died. I've seen the Taj Mahal, and it's an amazing site, especially if you can get there very early in the morning before the touts, the cars, the tourists and the choking, nasty smog from the copious cars the swarm Agra all day. There are few buildings in the world that can match it, or its creativity.

I don't know why, but this story off of ReutersUK has struck me oddly.

Basically it just says that the new Russian elite, fueled by massive fortunes made in the odd semi-totalitarian state of Vladimir Putin, are buying up every available piece of fine art - both old and contemporary - that they can get their hands on. Sotheby's and Christies both are setting up Moscow bureaus to take advantage of this tiny percentage with the majority of the Russian dosh.

Collecting like this, to go along side such wealth, have not been seen in Russia since the days of the Czars. At that time it was also anything goes.

I can't blame Russian people for wanting to get back their cultural heritage, especially when it was so abruptly taken from them, scattered to the winds and stomped with a jack boot whenever it tried to reveal itself in the ealry days of Comrade Lenin. I've always been a kind of a student of Russia - give nthat it's in my blood - and the peculiar and difficult path it seems to have always charted for itself. Despite all that, the country has consistently contributed some of the very best literature, paintings, poetry, sculpture, photography, drama and dance the world has, even during the communist era. I also have to mention Russia's contribution to chess, because I love the game and no country has added more to the game.

This competition that seems to have spring up, however, between Russians and themselves over who can acquire the most stunning array of art that can bridge the 100-year gap between the assasination of the Czar and Perestroika and "bring it back home to Russia" is a little discomfitting. No doubt some of it will end up in a museum on display, and some of it may even some day make it on tour to the rest of the world, but it's more likely most of it will end up at country estates, houses in Moscow, and in homes that dot the hills and the country side of Europe and America. It's what the Russian aristocracy did before the revolution. How else do you think so much of it became available to the world at large?

Seems a rare early Picasso - a saucy one of the artist and his then lover in a clinch on the bed - was found in Scotland, propped against a wall, alongside two other valuable works of art. They are all going to be on the block on April 10 at a house called Duke's.



I don't know about you, but I only hand fresh, hand-cut roses over the Picasso paintings I have propped against the wall in my two year-old daughter's room, right next to her crayons and scissors.

"Go ahead, honey, it's only a Picasso."

This is possibly from a royal family of some country, and the seller is part of that family. Don't you have to pass a decency test of some kind to be called royalty? I mean, they all know how to drink with their pinkies up, and spend money like drunken sailors... But this is a Picasso, and one from his early 20s, before he became Picasso with a capital "P."

Royal families of the world: teach your children to pick up their art when they are done playing.

Howdy folks. We made it through Day One of the March 2008 Atlantique City Antiques Show and, if I may speak for the staff and crew of Atlantique City - and I reckon that I can - Day one was pretty fantastic.

By the 9 a.m. early opening we had at least 2000 people lined up outside the door, many of them grabbing copies of Antique Trader and our various publications at the show, and the trafic flow was steady all day. While official numbers aren't available yet, I'd say we had at least 5,000 people come through the convention center and they seemed interesting. Quality is high, and uniform, and we heard some good comments from dealers.

The appraisal event went very well, too, highlighted by a superb Judy Garland dress, straight off the MGM lot, that ended up in - of all places - Milwaukee, WI. We have to wait and see if the pics cvame out, but I'll post them if I will.

At the end of the day we also hosted a gathering to fete Ellen Schroy and thank her for all her hard work - 28 years worth - on the Warman's Price Guide. Nice stuff, and Ellen is a great lady. She'll be missed on Warman's, but it's a good opportunity for Trader to get her byline in the paper, as we did with the 4/9 issue.

Sunday is usually a bit slower at shows, but there can be some serious buying going on, so we're keeping our fingers crossed for our dealers and ourselves, for a good day today, a smooth load-out tonight, and a nice easy flight home tomorrow morning. Last October we got delayed in Philly for 12 hours. Yuck.

Looking forward to getting home, getting back to work and regular blogging, and seeing my family. I love the East Coast, and have a lot of good memories from these shows and my childhood summers spent here, but I want to get back to Stevens Point, WI - wide open spaces, nice people and great beer - and get back in the swing of day-to-day life and work.

See you there.

Howdy!

After a long week of vacation last week - agonizing, as you can imagine, spending so much time with my lovely wife and daughter in Phoenix and Las Vegas - I got into Atlantic City last Wednesday night. Travel was 13 hours from Vegas, with a few nighmarish waits in TSA lines at all airports.

It's time for good antiques and the Atlantique City Antiques Show.

We have spent two exhausting days getting the show ready, but as I write this morning, the show floor at the Atlantic City Convention Center looks beautfiul, there is a crowd of 2000 people waiting outside the door and we are hoping for a good show. We know it looks good, and quality is ubiquitous. Now we are waiting for the buyers.

The weather here is a bit chilly and overcast, which means good weather for antique buying, and the attitude seems to be optimistic, which is half the battle when there are such problems with the economy. I don't, however, have to tell any Trader readers that.

What I can tell you is that I'm excited for the opening of this show, proud of the hard work we've done and ready to see this thing come off a success.

If any of you out there are coming today or tomorrow, or go this weekend and read this later, give me a holler and let me know what you think.

I'll post more later today, hopeufully with some pics, but no promises...

Karen Knapstein here again ... I fear I'm becoming a nuisance on this thing :)

This press release just landed in my inbox a bit ago. I recall seing such announcements in the past, but never paid much attention to them.

Returning from New York City only a week after being designated a National Women's History Month 2008 Honoree, Edna Hibel will greet her many followers and other members of the public at the Edna Hibel Fine Art Fair. The free two-day art fair will take place on Saturday and Sunday, April 5 and 6, at the Hibel Museum of Art, across the street from Roger Dean Stadium, in Jupiter, Florida.

In addition to greeting Edna Hibel and viewing her renowned art, the public will be able to see educational exhibitions featuring the complex art of stone lithography, and the complicated work of putting together an art book.

Edna Hibel, 91, has been painting for over 80 years. She is the only American woman to win the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts. Her paintings, lithographs, serigraphs, and sculptures have been exhibited in more than 20 countries spanning four continents in prestigious institutions, including six national museums.

Admission to the Edna Hibel Fine Art Fair is free, as is valet parking. Directions and other information may be obtained by contacting the Hibel Museum of Art at (561) 622-5560.

Today, I investigated the official Edna Hibel Web site and find I'm taken by the warmth and spirit of her art.

I'm impressed.

Wow. Just wow.

Suitcase of money falling from the sky...

Find a painting in a shop, pay about $700 bucks for it, find out it's worth about $500,000... NOt a bad days work for an umemployed 23 year old in England.

Not a bad life's work, actually. No pic, so I don't know what it looks like. Thing is, too, the guy is going to keep it probably... How un-American...

Wow.

This an awesome sculpture, but - perhaps, jus' a l'il bit - overpriced. $14M? That's Monopoly money, right? right? Of course, it was a t Christie's, so I'm betting the bid wasn't all about the piece itself.

I couldn't imagine spending that kind of cash on something, plus, I can't help but think that spending that kind of money on a piece of sculpture - a relic of the material world, which - according to The Buddha - doesn't even really exist, except in the constructs of our minds as determined by karma - that is completely contrary to the teachings it represents...

Hmmm... Have to mediate on that one.

Oh, and I really love the blog that I pulled this story from - Bad at sports - which is an often humorous look at the world of contemporary art...

Good for the authorities that busted this ring, and good for fine art lovers!

Just goes to show that you should always know your source, and know their reputation! Nowhere is a dealer's rep more important than in antiques and art.

There's not a lot of room to talk about Outsider Art in Antique Trader, but I happen to be very passionate about the form.

I love the anti-academic feel of Outsider Art, and the untrained lines that reveal an artist's obsessions.

In Outsider Art there are so many talented living artists I wouldn't know where to start, not to mention the dead ones. There is one name, however, that reigns supreme above them all, and that is of Henry Darger.



This exhibition at the Unioversity of Chicago's Smart Museum just came to my attention. It's a great exhibition of Darger's Vivian Girls work - bizarre, twisted and entirely compelling stuff - that, sadly, closes this weekend!

If you're in Chicago, and can get there and check it out, or have already seen it, drop me a line and let me know how it is or was. There's no way I can get four hours to Chi-town this weekend, plus I think my daughter would be a bit weirded out by Darger's take...

I like what Daryle is getting at here in his blog post from yesterday. The sporting and hunting art market is overlooked by a large segment of antique and art collectors - there are, of course, those whose bread and butter it is...

As a side note, AT is not suggesting to people who read Daryle's blog that they join the 31 club, or that we endorse it. The plain fact of the matter is that I like the blog, and Daryle is a smart guy who has good advice and strong opinions on the market, and that AT - meaning me, today - thinks that is a very good thing in a market and a business that can be publicly very vague and privately very passionate...

It's worth a read.

Interesting little twist out of NYC, courtesy of Here Be Old Things.

A guy bought a box of photos, with a bunch of Diana Arbus photos in there. A dealer paid him $3500 for them. They're expected to auction for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Name of the game? Dishonest dealer? You decide.

Here's a first look at our March 19 issue, a special for the Atlantique City Antiques Show, which is owned by Trader's parent company, F+W Publications.

It'll be a glossy front with an extra 5,000 copies distributed at AC on March 29-30, 2008 at the Altantic City Convention Center.

I'll be there. If you are around and want to say hi, please do...

At least in art officialy, but you gotta figure antiquities and antiques - which China has been placing ever-tightening restrictions on - make up a big part of this number, and represent a huge figure in and of itself.

This is interesting news released by China's official state news agency, Xinhua, about the mainland now being number three in art sales, displacing France.

The U.S. and U.K. are sitting pretty in first with huge market shares, but - as with almost every market - look out for the Chinese boom. I'm sure India isn't too far behind.

China has been ripe for a while for an explosion in art and antiques. When The Cultural Revolution destroyed thousands of years of Dynasty, a lot of the classic art and antiques went into hiding in the vast countryside. Now all of that has been coming out and the prices are exoribitant in many cases - that's if you can get it out of the country.

The government there knows now what it's cultural heritage is worth, even if they forgot for a couple of generations. Now it's cashing in.