LONDON, ENGLAND – By now it is no secret that newly wealthy Chinese buyers are transforming the global market for art and antiques. Sotheby’s chief executive William Ruprecht recently told the Wall Street Journal that the Chinese are spending $4 billion a year on Chinese paintings alone – more than Sotheby’s and Christie’s combined annual sales of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art. Nearly all of the leading auction houses are seeking Mandarin-fluent staff. But despite their assertive auction presence, Chinese buyers are scarce at the West’s leading art and antiques shows, a challenge for dealers looking to groom new collectors. As I recently reported in AFAnews.com, that may be about to change.

http://www.afanews.com/blogs/blogs/too-big-to-ignore-ben-janssens-on-tefafs-china-initiative

The migratory habits of collectors were on display in late July as buyers of sporting art made their annual swing through coastal New England. Prices crested in 2007 with the private sale of two antique merganser hen decoys by Lothrop Holmes for over one million dollars apiece. The three major specialty auctioneers in sporting arts field posted $5.4 million in their recent round of sales, evidence that the market is steadily climbing back from its post-recession lows.

http://www.afanews.com/blogs/blogs/sporting-art-on-the-wing-after-market-setback

Buyers from mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong are scooping up dwindling supplies of classical Chinese art – good, bad and indifferent – in salesrooms around the world. Will the boom continue or is the market for classical Chinese art a bubble waiting to burst?
For more, see AFAnews.com

International auction houses are defying the sluggish economy by offering art and design with near universal appeal. Regional houses are finding their niche with homegrown fare.  See AFAnews.com:

http://www.afanews.com/blogs/blogs/20th-century-design-round-up-big-names-push-the-total-past-20-million

Was Albert Sack the end of an era, or just its beginning? See AFAnews.com:

http://www.afanews.com/blogs/blogs/albert-sack-first-and-last

For much of the past century, antiquarians have associated the former colony of Rhode Island with a group of supremely elegant block and shell-carved mahogany furniture made in the 18th century by members of two Newport Quaker clans, the Townsends and Goddards. But as the new Rhode Island Furniture Archive reveals, the state’s contribution is larger and more complex than previously supposed. Read about it at AFAnews.com.

http://www.afanews.com/blogs/blogs/beyond-blocks-and-shells-in-rhode-island

Art Basel Miami is not the only party scene. After-hours revelry is tradition at the Colonial Williamsburg Antiques Forum, which gets underway in Rockefeller’s other center on February 20. Read about the scene at AFAnews.com:

http://www.afanews.com/news/news/expect-serious-partying-at-this-years-antiques-forum-by-laura-beach

SANTA FE, N.M. – December is the best month to be in Santa Fe. Snow sugars the old town and farolitos – occasionally still the paper bag and candle variety of childhood memory – climb stepped adobe walls. Pinon scents the night air. At the nearby pueblos, feast day dances bind the generations in spiritual traditions as old as time.

A first stop is Coulter Brooks Art & Antiques at 924 Paseo de Peralta. Jan Brooks and Lane Coulter – who is known for such well-thumbed references as New Mexican Tinwork, 1840-1940; Navajo Saddle Blankets: Textiles to Ride in the American West and Converging Streams: Art of the Hispanic and Native American Southwest -are great sources for New Mexican decorative arts. (more…)

BOSTON, MA. – The new Art of the Americas Wing is finally open at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston after ten years of planning and five years of construction. Anyone interested in statement architecture or in American art (that includes you, Canada and Mexico) should get over to see it soon.

With only slight immodesty, MFA director Malcolm Rogers has called the project “one of the greatest cultural initiatives in the American arts ever.” So what did Rogers get for his $504 million? To begin with, 53 new galleries spread over four floors, plus a giant glass atrium that is destined to become Boston’s next great date place.

The wing is the work of Foster + Partners, the London-based architectural firm headed by Norman Foster, maybe best known as the creator of Beijing Airport’s Terminal 3, which thrillingly resembles a snaking, vermilion dragon. (more…)

DEERFIELD, MA. -If ever there is a place to see early New England art, architecture and design it is at the ADA/Historic Deerfield Antiques Show, set on the campus of Historic Deerfield and Deerfield Academy in western Massachusetts each Columbus Day weekend.

When we visited, fall was in the air and a cornucopia of choice fare was ripe for picking.

Sculpture, textile, pattern – how can you not love baskets? Marcy Burns, a Manhattan dealer in Native American arts, filled the bill with a choice selection of Aleutian baskets in mint condition.

A most whimsical Adam and Eve sampler whose maker found a motif – the apple – and stuck with it. Dated 1816, the silk on linen embroidery was a highlight at Elliott & Grace Snyder, South Egremont, Ma.

Folks gather ‘round when the Ohio dealers David Good and Sam Forsythe are in town. Their love of early American pottery is infectious. 
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