A quirky and attractive mix of merchandise spread out among hundreds of booths brought buyers out in hordes for Stella Shows’ popular Pier Antiques Show. An elegant and seamless presentation of its twice-a-year event at Pier 94, the show, March 14 and 15, featured everything from traditional Americana to Mid-Century and Modern offerings, as well as a chic selection from a bevy of international dealers in Fashion Alley.
By the time the gate opened at 10 am, a crowd had created a congested bottleneck at the show entrance while the line continued to grow, stretching outside and around the front of the building.
Calm one minute as buyers chatted quietly among themselves and plotted their shopping strategy, but once the first buyer was through the gate, the atmosphere became, dare we say, almost Brimfield-esque, as buyers charged swiftly and purposefully through the gate, with one man even breaking into a run to be the first to get to a particular booth. The energy on the floor was palpable.
“Manhattan is still the place to be, period. A younger, very sophisticated, well-informed and self-confident buyer has emerged, one spoiled only in the sense that it expects all of the world’s treasure to appear at its doorstep within Manhattan. And, boy were they ever hungry for country treasure last weekend at Stella’s Pier Show,” said Americana dealer Victor Weinblatt. “Preshow was surprisingly strong, Saturday was good, and Sunday afternoon was an absolute blow-out.”
Signs went flying out of his booth, including a sand-painted and gilded Nineteenth Century Boston provenance “Home Bakery” sign, an early Twentieth Century life-size Amish farmer farm stand trade sign (ex Fred Hansen), a Midwestern “Sandwich” sign, a New York “Kiddie Matinee” sign and a Nineteenth Century gilded on canvas window shade “Drug Store” trade sign.
Among his many sales were a set of eight large Pennsylvania Academy drawing studies of the male physique, a 5-foot diameter sand cast industrial mold mustard and red mirror, a 7-foot apple green farm stand produce table, a large circular Kentucky crotched bull’s-eye motif rug, a polychrome country Art Deco stool, two mid-Nineteenth Century weaver’s skarns, a six-color child’s Parcheesi board, several hooked rugs and a healthy selection of smalls.
Bob Withington Antiques, York, Maine, offered an interesting grouping of ten framed anatomical charts and a cased dissection chart from The Teachers’ Anatomical Aid, Graphic Illustration, Human Anatomy, circa 1889.
The dealer also showed a 91-inch harvest table from a New Hampshire Grange hall, circa 1900, and a carved limestone garden bench, circa 1890‱910.
Antiques II at Four Corners, Tiverton, R.I., offered a pair of Nineteenth Century statues of reclining whippets, an Eighteenth Century French planter with carved lion masts and a view of Narragansett Park by a Massachusetts artist Mike Stasyshyn in 1961 that recaptured the past glory of the races there.
Joshua Lowenfels, New York City, specializes in American works of art, including fine and folk art, decorative arts and objects of virtue, predominantly Nineteenth and Twentieth Century. At the show, he had an eye-catching tri-panel screen with whimsical imagery that looked as if they had been pulled straight from a children’s book, as well as a colorful King of Conjurers sign and a pleasing checkerboard.
High Street Antiques, York, Maine, showed a mix of styles in its booth, with a nice focus on industrial and Mid-Century, including a steel table made from recycled parts, a set of cast stone doves from the 1960s, of which several already boasted red tags by 11 am, and a Mid-Century demilune table, circa 1950‶0, wormy chestnut, all original.
An attractive faux branch metal table with a glass top was eye-catching at Judith and James Milne’s booth, New York City, as was a metal coat and umbrella stand with a wonderful green patina that stood about 6 feet high.
The booth of Schorr & Dobinsky, Bridgehampton, N.Y., made for a fine place to sit and rest amid the walking up and down the lengthy aisles at the show. Fine chairs were abundant here, including a pair of Louis XVI-style dining chairs and a pair of leather club chairs, French, early Twentieth Century.
Showing among the Modern dealers, Bridges Over Time, Newburgh, N.Y., offered a stone table by Maitland Smith, circa 1970s, and a France & Daverkosen leather chair, 1950s.
Leonard Davenport, Bridgehampton, N.Y., had a choice mix of contemporary art from paintings to pottery. Standouts included several groupings of vessels from Italian artist Bruno Gambone’s “Stones of Sardinia” series to works by his son, Guido Gambone, including one of his iconic lion works from the late 1950s.
Two fine paintings on the wall both involved depictions of Central Park, including a fetching oil painting by Robert Sowers called “Couple in Central Park” that appears to be a photograph when viewed up close. Sowers is well known for his massive stained glass mural that was in New York’s JFK Airport terminal for years. The other work was by Edmund E. Niemann of a snow-covered Central Park, circa 1962.
For Obnoxious Antiques, Burlington, N.J., the more unique an item, the better. From coin-ops to an egg chair, the dealers specialize in the offbeat. A highlight of the booth was a rare 6-foot-tall figure of advertising icon “Colonel Sanders” from Kentucky Fried Chicken that probably stood out in front of a KFC restaurant in the 1970s. The figure is rare not just due to its fine condition but that it still has its original bucket of chicken (sans chicken) with lid, as well as eyeglasses and the colonel’s cane.
The dealers also offered a piece of modern Americana in the form of a 19½-foot-long entrance banner from the Reynolds & Waller sideshow circus, signed and dated 1984.
Shortly after opening, The Village Braider, Plymouth, Mass., was busy sticking red dots on merchandise that it either bagged up or stuck on a back shelf for later pickup, including an Outsider Art-inspired wedding cake constructed of gum wrappers.
Steve Erenberg, Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., showed an eclectic mix of movie props, including masks and a ship model from Cleopatra, which had its oars steadily paddling throughout the show Saturday morning, as well as a Chinese armor mannequin, mid-1800s.
Carolyn Wilson Antiques, Mendon, N.Y., hung one wall solely with educational posters used in classrooms of old to teach shapes and letters and the like.
Rose Garden Antiques, Woodstock, N.Y., offered a series of zinc letters, about a foot high each, French, circa 1930s, that the dealers carefully arranged throughout their booth to spell out the word, “Antiquities” as well as a fine early Russian cupboard in original surface.
The next Stella Shows event will be Antiques & Design in the Hamptons slated for August 14 and 15. The Pier show returns here November 14 and 15. For information, www.stellashows.com or 973-808-5015.
