Surrealist Jewelry, Inventive Ceramics, and a Giant Wooden Cigarette Bring Whimsy to the Winter Show
New York’s annual extravaganza of all things collectible and (mostly) antique delivered everything from Americana to Delftware, in one afternoon.
New York’s annual extravaganza of all things collectible and (mostly) antique delivered everything from Americana to Delftware, in one afternoon.
The Winter Show, now in its 71st year, is one of the antique and fine art world’s most venerable events—a 10-day extravaganza of curiosities, valuables, collectibles, and artwork, housed in the cavernous Park Avenue Armory. The objects on display are often the sort you’d see in a museum, in a vitrine in a gallery attended to by security—but they’re almost all for sale. (And, if you ask politely, you can touch them.) This event is one of the oldest antique fairs in the United States. It’s a charitable endeavor, an annual benefit for the East Side House Settlement, which provides critical community, educational, and workforce-related services for residents of the Bronx and the northern reaches of Manhattan.
Armor and ancient weapons abound!
Photo by Amy Lombard
The duck in the middle is a soup tureen and the parrot on the left’s head splits in two, transforming him from tabletop delight to functional item.
Photo by Amy Lombard
There’s truly a treasure around every corner, if you’re a serious collector, a museum curator, or just a lookie-loo with an appreciation for the finer things of the past. The range is vast. For example, a booth full of ancient armor and antiquities neighbors a booth with delicate faience German chinoiserie and a soup tureen shaped like a parrot. Unsurprisingly, my eye at the fair was trained to seek out the surreal and the whimsical—an appropriate response to and balm for the various existential and actual horrors of the world that are starting to hit a little too close to home right now.
Here's what stood out at this year's fair.
Galerie Gmurzynka
Tom Wesselman’s giant cigarette was by far the most alluring thing I saw—five feet long and made of painted wood with a thick plume of smoke that, from almost every angle, looked dynamic and unabashedly sexy. Smoking is bad (they say), but a lit cigarette sculpture from an American Pop artist feels fresh in the way a Warhol I passed on my stroll could never.
Photo by Amy Lombard
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