Date: Fri 19-Feb-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: LAURAB

Quick Words:

Sanford-Smith-Armory

Full Text:

The Fall Antiques Show Will Go On

NEW YORK CITY -- The show will go on. Sanford L. Smith & Associates, producer

and manager of the Fall Antiques Show, has announced it will proceed with what

has been called "the folk art show." The Fall Antiques Show will open, as

previously scheduled, at the Seventh Regiment Armory with a benefit for the

Museum of American Folk Art on Wednesday, November 17. It will continue

through Sunday, November 21.

"We are going to do it," Smith said in a phone interview last week. "My

original goal was to get 40 committed dealers. We have 38 committed now." The

manager is ultimately hoping for about 70 exhibitors. There were 66 booths in

last year's show.

Smith had threatened to cancel his flagship show, which celebrated its

twentieth anniversary last November, if exhibitors did not more

enthusiastically support the venture. After the last fair, some exhibitors

complained about lagging attendance and uneven sales.

Many of the Fall Show's most illustrious members have said they will return.

Smith said he also hopes to "bring back dealers who haven't been in the show

for a few years."

The improved event will be much like the best Fall Shows of years past. "It

will be the best all-American show there is," Smith promised. "It will include

country and formal furniture, classic and funky folk art, quilts and textiles,

metalware, paintings and advertising art.

"We'll have a little more outsider art. The criterion for outsider art remains

the same: only deceased artists may be represented."

Smith said he asked exhibitors for an early commitment so that he might start

promoting the fair earlier in the year. "We are flogging the show starting in

March. In the next two weeks we will be sending out a 17,000-piece mailing. We

are making a bigger promotion to decorators, designers and architects. We are

doing a special mailing to corporate art consultants."