The first is the Antiquarian Fine Art Fair, slated for 30 November to 4 December at Madison Square Garden. It is headed by Jerome Eisenberg, Royal Athena Galleries director and Minerva publisher. “There is a need for an international fair of high quality, as well as the Haughton October fair and the Winter Antiques Show,” says Dr Eisenberg, who has tried for 15 years to get into the Winter Antiques Show and has never been able to enter a Haughton fair. “We need a true kunstkammer fair in this country.” He has already signed up 48 dealers for the fair, which has a dateline of 1930. The predominantly European dealers include London’s Berwald Oriental Art; Cohen & Cohen; John Mitchell & Son, Waterhouse & Dodd and Tessiers along with Les Enlumières of Paris and Jorn Gunther of Hamburg. Dr Eisenberg says he will develop his own $200,000 budget advertising campaign as well as handle public relations. An average-sized stand costs $10,000, and the benefit charity is channel 13, the flagship station of PBS. “I’d like to break even in the first year, but if it does not happen, it will not bother me,” says Dr Eisenberg who intends to take his fair to other cities.
The second fair is under the wing of fair veteran Sanford Smith, who already has 10 events planned for the coming year. He is organising an inaugural fair for the 87-member Art and Antiques Dealers League of America, Inc. The Connoisseurs Antiques Fair will take place 16 to 19 November at the downtown Armory on Lexington Avenue at 26th Street.
On exactly the same dates, Sanford Smith is also launching his Art of the 20th-Century fair at the Armory. (The Art Newspaper, No. 114, May 2001, p.82) This features David Findlay, James Goodman, Gerald Peters, Leslie Waddington and Spanierman among others.