Art and antiques news from 2002

Some of the best expressions of the Sixties’ love affair with bold psychedelic patterns and colours can be seen in the fabric designs from that era.

RAYMOND CHANDLER’S Philip Marlowe first appeared in The Big Sleep of 1939, and the copy seen above right, in a slightly chipped and torn jacket, sold for $8000 (£5160) in Pt. II of the ‘Detective Fiction Library of Richard M.Lackritz’, sold by Christie’s New York on September 24, but Chandler was not the writer who enjoyed the greatest success.

Vintage Film Posters: For some people there is nothing more enjoyable than watching a late-night horror movie alone in pitch darkness. The fascination with terror extends to the world of vintage film posters where horror is the most sought-after genre.

Novelty pieces and collector’s items like this Art Nouveau enamelled silver double-photograph locket, right, were the pieces mainly in demand at the silver and jewellery sale held by Fellows (15% buyer’s premium) at Birmingham on September 5.

Bligh relics sold as part of the Travel Week at Christie’s, attracted national media headlines, but the most successful of this series of four sales was the Freycinet Collection, which on September 26 raised a premium-inclusive total of £1.57m.

FANS of television’s Sharpe will be well acquainted with the tough life of the trooper during the Peninsula War, and also with the grander life of the officers who managed to dine elegantly in their tents on the eve of battle.

UNTIL November 30 Vienna dealers Michaela and Wolfgang Bauer hold their autumn selling exhibition at their gallery Bel Etage at Mahlerstrasse 15.

Two copies of Alcoholics Anonymoussigned by the founder of movement, Bill Wilson, were among the more successful lots in an August 15 Pacific Book Auctions sale of ‘Books in all Fields’.

NICOLA Beach, who helped set up Drummond Read Recruitment and Training, has formed her own fine arts recruitment company to specialise in a narrower sector of the market.

BELGIAN dealer and international interior designer Axel Vervoordt made a big splash in Paris during the 21st Biennale, but although he had a stand at the grand fair his real showstopper was outside in a 44 metre industral barge moored on the opposite bank of the Seine facing the Carrousel du Louvre.

On October 1 – 40 years to the day since he first joined Christie’s to work at their front desk – the company’s international chairman Lord Hindlip, 62, announced his retirement, effective from December 31.

The Victorian House Book, by Robin Guild pubished by Sheldrake Press. ISBN 1873329393 £30hb

John Moyr Smith 1839-1912: A Victorian Designer, by Annamarie Stapleton, published by Richard Dennis Publications. ISBN 0903685841 £18sb (ISBN 0903685876 £22hb)

CRAFTS traditionally have not had a very design-led image, smacking more of leather sandals and worthy little woodcarvings than contemporary objects of imagination and flair.

Members of the Society of Fine Art Auctioneers are being asked to vote by post this month on far-reaching proposals which could significantly change the nature and power base of the society.

York Art Gallery have just scrapped admission charges. The gallery houses 600 years of internationally important British and European works of art including painting by Bellotto, Hockney, Hepworth and York-born William Etty.

A set of paintings, including two by Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens, have been stolen from a country house in Ireland that has now been targeted four times by thieves, police said.

COMPLEX bureaucracy and form filling are the biggest threat to small business – the backbone of the European art market – says Anthony Browne, chairman of the British Art Market Federation.

THEY LIKE a good sermon in this part of the world and in this September sale, a 1611 (seventh or eighth?) edition of the sermons of Henry Smith, a puritan divine who was known as “silver-tongued Smith”, and whose collected wisdom first appeared in print in 1592, sold at £320 (Humber) in a binding of contemporary calf gilt, while a 350pp manuscript collection of sermons, this time bound in 19th century calf, made £1100 (Lachman).

Internationally recognised specialist carriage auctioneers Thimbleby & Shoreland (6% buyer’s premium) rated their quarterly outing on September 4 outing in Reading as one of their best yet. “We were lucky to have quite a few pieces in the sale which were a bit different,” said specialist Sarah Needham.