Art and antiques news from 2006

CLIVE Stewart-Lockhart has been elected as the new chairman of The Society of Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers (SOFAA).

Illustrated by Denver Gillen, Robert L. May’s poem about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was first issued in 1939 as a give-away booklet for children by a Chicago department store, Montgomery Ward.

The Museum in Docklands have acquired a rare and significant archive of 18th century papers highlighting London’s role in the transatlantic slave trade.

JOHN Taylor was the Sawrey joiner and wheelwright, whose wife and stout, elderly daughter, Agnes Anne, kept the village shop immortalised by Beatrix Potter in Ginger and Pickles. But the first Taylor to appear in one of her books was his son, young John, who was the model for the terrier carpenter John Joiner in The Roly Poly Pudding.

JUST in time for Christmas – the perfect stocking filler for every art dealer, collector and art market professional.

HOTELS, restaurants, insurance, security, shippers and packers, design and print, marketing and promotion. These are just some of the ancillary industries that benefit when the show comes to town.

Sotheby’s are to sell the stock of Bourdon House, the historic Georgian townhouse in Mayfair recently sold by London dealers Mallett.

AT £420m, the deal would have brought St James Capital a 70 per cent profit on the £245m they paid for the complex just two and a half years ago. But it appears that last week’s London Evening Standard scoop on the sale of Earls Court and Olympia was, at the very least, a little premature.

SIGN up now for the joint RICS/SOFAA Auction Law Conference which will take place in London on Monday, January 22.

Not exactly your typical ATG reader – this great picture was taken by Lucy Naughton, a 27-year-old with a passion for photography who has been finding inspiration at antiques fairs.

MISSING Book Fairs, named after the fairs’ eponymous organiser, Chris Missing, are moving one of their six events from one stately home to another.

THERE’S a fairs reshuffle in the medieval town of Rye in East Sussex.

DAN Godfrey is opening an antiques and collectables centre at the Grade 2 Listed late-18th century watermill at Barton Le Clay, north of Luton in Bedfordshire.

JUDITH Lidell is celebrating the success of her first vintage fashion fair on her home patch of Newcastle-on-Tyne on Sunday November 19.

On November 28 Spink officially opened the new showroom at their existing headquarters at 69 Southampton Row.

THIS year’s ATG-sponsored Charity Football Match between the Dealers and Auctioneers has raised more than £10,000 for Breast Cancer Haven.

The 21st century equivalent of an unknown masterpiece brought in to the front counter of a saleroom must be the treasure that surfaces on an auctioneer’s computer via a routine email.

Christie’s are to increase the number of European salerooms offering the Christie’s Live online bidding feature.

Contemporary art plans for Shanghai and Dubai

THE Christmas lights are now on in Camden Passage, but for some dealers this will be their last festive period in the London antiques thoroughfare.