The fair, to be known as Paris-Tableav, will be held from November 4-8, a time preceeding Old Master auctions in Europe and one relatively free of other major fairs. The idea is to limit the event exclusively to Old Masters with a dateline of 1850 and to "put a little bit of art back into the Parisian marketplace".
Thematic concentrations in this arena have a proven track record. London has two events in the summer dedicated to drawings and paintings and New York holds a drawings week to coincide with the January Old Master auctions. But these are umbrella events with participating dealers holding exhibitions in their own or colleagues' galleries.
A specialist fair is the favoured Parisian option, as seen in the Salon du Dessin, the dedicated drawings fair which has taken place each spring for the past ten years at the Palais de la Bourse.
Tableav will be also staged at the Bourse. "If the Salon de Dessin is indicative of the interest in this field we are going to have a very good fair", said Bob Haboldt one of the event's founder's.
Haboldt and the other committee members – Didier Aaron & Bruno Desmarest; Maurizio Canesso; Eric Coatalem; Jean Francois Heim; Georges de Jonckheere; Jacques Leegenhoek; Giovanni Sarti; Bertrand Gautier & Bertrand Talabardon and Claude Vittet – will each invite a guest participant from outside France, bringing the total number of exhibitors to 20.
Each staging of the fair is to have annual theme and for 2011 it will be the back of a painting to demonstrate what the reverse of a work can reveal about its history and manufacture.
By Anne Crane
