The rain stayed off, the crowds poured in and everyone deemed the Margate debut of the Art Car Boot Fair on the Bank Holiday weekend an overwhelming success. Indeed, the raffish seaside resort, which is now home to Turner Contemporary and many art-worlders, seemed the natural home for this beloved event. The boot fair sees artists known, unknown and unexpected plying their wares, with anything on sale for more than three figures firmly frowned-upon.
Among the seaside stallholders were comedian-painter Vic Reeves, whose paintings were going for £100 a pop; the Neo Naturists, who were selling their goods in the shadow of Turner Contemporary’s retrospective of their most famous alumnus, Grayson Perry; Rachel Howard, who was sharing a stand with skilfully stitched portraits by her daughter Holly Allan; and another joint enterprise being run by Mat Collishaw and Polly Morgan—the art world’s most handsome couple—who were combining taxidermy, limited edition mugs and a fetching print of a flaming skull.
Then of course there was the presiding presence of Ms Tracey Emin, reigning monarch of Margate, who turned up sufficiently late to be spared the rather unedifying sight of her Emin International stand being mobbed by crowds. The punters were so desperate to get their hands on her £50 limited edition poster—“hand signed by the artist”—that just a half hour after its gates opened, the fair was brought to a standstill. Thankfully once the edition of 500 had sold out, the frenzy died down. And the booty hunters staggered off with armfuls—and in a couple of cases, baby buggies—piled high with swag, heading straight to eBay and leaving a slightly unsavoury whiff of speculation behind them.
However, as soon as they were able to fight through the Emin-speculators, those in the know made their way to find Sir Peter Blake who was honouring the event with an exceptionally beautiful print. Selling for £70 and in an edition of 150, the work features Margate’s shell grotto and his one-year-old self snapped on the Margate sands, seemingly in the company of both a seven-year-old, and an adult, Joseph Cornell. “The photograph is of him aged seven which is how old he would have been if he had been in Margate with me aged one”, explained Sir P, who also revealed that this was the first of a new series of works featuring his hero. “Cornell loved Europe but never travelled out of America in his lifetime, so now I’m making a new series of prints where I take him on holiday with me”. And what better place to start than by the sea in Margate?