Letters to the Editor

MADAM – Further to your piece on Beryl Cook at auction (Art Market, ATG No 2480), Plymouth put on a magnificent retrospective exhibition at the Council House in 2017 which was co-curated by Beryl Cook’s family [Our Beryl: Beryl Cook at Home].

MADAM – At the risk of boring your readers with yet another letter from me, I would like to endorse Kay Michie’s very sensible suggestion that one organisation representing the antiques trade would be better than two (Letters, ATG No 2479).

Essex auction house Sworders is asking ATG readers to help identify the manor house, also in Essex, featured in this Edward Bawden (1903-89) watercolour.

MADAM – Christopher Howe’s reminiscences and observations (‘Auction Giants Sotheby’s and Christie’s have turned this multicolour business into beige’, Letters, ATG No 2478) bring back happy memories.

MADAM – After a lifetime as an antiques dealer, one continuous theme I have noticed is that all my fellow traders have thousands of stories of there esoteric life. Some true and some enhanced for effect, but a real insight into our bizarre way of life.

MADAM – Having been dealing with European auction houses and art dealers for over 50 years, including the period before the introduction of ARR (Artist’s Resale Right), it is tragic to discover the only excuse that the negotiators can present for the continuation of this imposition is a ‘level playing field’ (News, ATG No 2476).

MADAM - Re ‘Magna Carta Shines in Silver’, Auction Reports, ATG No 2476.

MADAM – It will come as no surprise that I, for one, wholeheartedly support the proposal from Kaye Michie (see Letters & Opinion, ATG No 2479) that the two antiques dealer associations, BADA and LAPADA, should be merged.

MADAM – It has been a rough sea for BADA of late and I sincerely hope that BADA will not become ‘The Flying Dutchman’ of the Art and Antique world: endlessly at sea, talking to itself with neither destination nor home port.

MADAM – Further to Kaye Michie’s suggestion of merging our two antiques associations, I would like to say as a longstanding member and past council member of the BADA, shouldn’t now be the time the BADA council asked its membership for their views?

MADAM – There is some hope for a replacement to the regrettable but understandable Covid-related closure of the Christie’s archives highlighted by the trade associations and the letter (ATG No 2476) from Mike Sanderson.

MADAM – I would like to open up the discussion on merging the two major antique trade associations BADA and LAPADA.

MADAM – I do not see the controversy around ARR within the art market going away as long as it is in existence – because its existence is so peculiar.

MADAM – Re: Sotheby’s outpaces Christie’s across ‘transformative’ year (front page, ATG No 2474).

MADAM – Could somebody please explain to me how ARR creates “a level playing field” when it does not apply in Switzerland, America or Hong Kong (‘ARR is here to stay’, front page, ATG No 2476)?

MADAM – I am curating an exhibition being held by the Garden Museum, London, this year which will celebrate the life and achievements of Constance Spry (1886-1960), florist and gardener.

MADAM – I would like to pay an (overdue) tribute to Antiques Trade Gazette.

MADAM – The 2020 National Risk Assessment report, published late last year, rates the art market as ‘high’ risk for money laundering.

MADAM – Thank you to ATG for keeping us up to date with all the goings on in the antique, art and book world in 2020 while this dreadful virus has curtailed all our visits to antique fairs, book fairs etc.

MADAM – I wonder if any of your readers can identify the mezzotint attached.