After mistaking the celebrity arrival area for the actual entrance to the Los Angeles Antiques Show last week (one obviously myopic photographer even raised his camera briefly in anticipation of my being someone, then quickly lowered it), I found my way to the proper entrance and the wealth of treasures inside. The annual affair, held in April each year at Santa Monica Airport’s Barker Hanger, benefits P.S. Arts, a nonprofit that seeks to restore arts education to Los Angeles public schools. “It’s devastating that arts education in our public schools has been taken away,” says Robert Willson, owner of Downtown antiques showroom and the event cochair with Habité’s Laurent Rebuffel. “P.S. Arts is doing everything it can to remedy this.”
By the time I navigated my way through the celebrity-packed room and the bar area, I reached Downtown’s space and was greeted by the gracious Willson and his business partner, the always impeccably dressed David Serrano. Willson had already sold several pieces before I got there, just an hour into the party: a grand 1940s brass chandelier by Arteluce and a two-piece 1950s Italian bench, the back of which was mounted on the wall with a seat free to roam as the user sees fit. After the bench had been picked up later in the evening, Willson quickly replaced it with an exquisite pair of Arturo Pani steel-and-brass X-base stools. “We were very pleased with the attendance and the sales, even though everyone is concerned with the economy,” he notes. “A $50,000 clock sold, as did a $70,000 bracelet. And celebrity buyers were out in full force. Arnold Schwarzenegger even shopped the show.”
In addition to the occasional, dramatic noisy takeoff overhead, surprises came in the form of Noho Modern, headed by the young dealer Thomas Hayes, who brought incredible modern wood pieces from Brazil, a market that promises to gain momentum. The Silver Fund, out of San Francisco, in addition to the sleek yet expected Georg Jensen pieces, displayed a bowl carved out of a single piece of agate, crowned by a bejeweled gold dragon. And Daniel Stein Antiques brought the late-19th-century carousel pig it promised—a snarling beast, ideal for any fair.
—Erika Heet
Robb Report Senior Editor, Art and Antiques
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