Harold E. Cole Antiques And Art

To Open New Shop Mid-December

WOODBURY — Harold E. Cole Antiques and Art is opening a new antiques shop and art gallery at 137 Main Street South in Woodbury, next to Black Pearl Antiques, with assistant dealer Bettina Krainin. Cindy Doran will manage the shop, and is in charge of marketing and online sales.

In addition to high-end American furniture, Harold E. Cole Antiques and Art will carry a general line of antiques and accessories. Krainin will also feature her line of antiques. The opening, which is scheduled for mid-December, will also showcase an important folk art collection, recently acquired.

Mr Cole has been in the antiques business for more than 40 years and exhibits regularly at many nationally recognized antiques shows. Ms Krainin has been dealing in American country painted furniture focusing on New England accessories and woodlands baskets for more than 20 years. Ms Doran has more than 20 years experience in sales and operations encompassing national accounts, franchises, as well as personal sales.

The first in a series of art shows and sales is tentatively set for March and April. Rediscovered Brandywine River artist Robert Williams’ watercolors will be shown.

Mr Williams was a long-term Woodbury resident, working for Kenneth Hammitt, Ramase/Vermont Woodflooring and Main Street Antiques Center. He is known for his decorated boxes as well as overmantels and other artistic items. He was also an English teacher and taught in Boston and Canada. He disliked painting large pictures and chose an intimate scale for his renditions. He may well be described as a “small picture artist.”

His final artistic motion was to place foxes in his artwork as a substitute for humans.

A catalog and online images of his work will also be presented. A large silhouette of multiple figures, which was a cover jacket piece of an earlier solo show in Pennsylvania by Mr Williams, will be offered along with a Christmas card to him from the noted Boston artist Conger Metcalf to “Robert and Michelle.” Partial proceeds from the sale of these two pieces will be donated to the Woodbury Library in memory of Mr Williams.

A second show is scheduled for September and October 2007 and will feature art of Walter K. Pleuthner (1885-1970). A Scarsdale, N.Y., architect and member of the Society of Independent Artists and New York Architectural League, he was a student of Frank DuMond (1865-1951). Best known for his urban landscapes, much of his wonderful and passionate “wacky” renditions may well be called outsider art. There will be several more shows of this artist at future dates.

A third show, called “Welcome to Spring,” in 2008 will feature oil paintings and studies by noted East Lyme and New York City artist Thomas Watson Ball (1863-1934). Mr Ball, a painter and muralist who studied at the Art Students League in New York with DuMond, lived and painted in Old Lyme from the 1920s to 1934. Mr DuMond additionally taught Georgia O’Keeffe at the Art Students League in New York City. A few paintings by Ball’s son, Thomas Raymond Ball (1896-1943), will also be shown.  

The shop will initially be open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm, or by chance or appointment. For information, call 203-263-4909.