The Greatest (Antique) Show on Earth!

Aka, Ben Macklowe makes a brief visit to The European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht.

So your intrepid Art Nouveau traveler was recently at it again, flying in commando-style for a one-day whirlwind tour of The European Fine Art Fair, held in Maastricht, the Netherlands. After a cramped overnight flight into Brussels, I made my way from the coach section to meet my father, who, at 75 years old, has a free pass for the extra expense of business class.

We were met at the airport by our friend Luc, himself an Art Nouveau enthusiast. It was a classically gray, rainy day in Brussels, though it was somewhat brightened by a hot shower and a delicious breakfast of sunny side up eggs and toast. Luc’s wife is an excellent chef and a bird lover who keeps a coop full of chickens, so the eggs were exceptionally fresh!

We drove for a bit over an hour through a rainy, somewhat featureless landscape; mostly flatlands and farms, punctuated by a few small towns. Before we knew it we were in Maastricht, or should I say, near Maastricht, since Luc’s GPS kept turning us in circles near the Convention Center, pleasantly instructing us in her patient French to make yet another right turn.

Finally we found the garage and made our way in. I have been to the Biennale in Paris and we’ve obviously exhibited at the best shows in America, but I was really unprepared for the scale and quality of TEFAF. Imagine New York’s Winter Antique Show and multiply the number of dealers by four, then spread their disciplines across everything imaginable, and that will start to give you a sense of the breadth of this show.

No sooner had we made our way through the allée of roses that adorns the entrance than we ran smack into booths filled with paintings by Breughel, Picasso, and Kandinsky, the finest 18th and 19th Century (mostly French) furniture, Medieval art and antiquities. There was a dealer specializing in antique Indian jewelry, and another from Spain specializing in Renaissance jewelry. What a thrill it was to see a proper piece of 16th Century jewelry up close!

Over the last few years TEFAF has evolved and now has a “Design” section, dedicated to 20th Century Decorative Arts. The section is curated by Philippe Denys, a sophisticated and pleasant Belgian dealer whose taste runs towards refined and somewhat minimalist work. French Art Deco was well represented in this area, as were Vienna Secession and Bauhaus; there was even a piece or two by Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, whose work Macklowe Gallery has long championed.

As we walked through the fair, we were confronted by a selection of contemporary art that was less than thrilling and a group of contemporary jewelry dealers who seemed out of place at the fair. Nonetheless these areas show how seriously TEFAF takes its charge to represent the full spectrum of all that is beautiful from the past to the present day, so it was refreshing to see Rodin next to religious icons and a wall installation by Niki de Saint Phalle near Old Master still lifes. Knowing this made it all the more shocking to see that there wasn’t a stick of French Art Nouveau furniture at the fair, nor was there a vase by Emile Gallé or a pâte de verre of Amalric Walter. Loïe Fuller was neither to be found in metal nor on the walls, and the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany had no representation at all. How could this be? Is Europe experiencing collective amnesia of how significant fin-de-siècle Paris, Nancy and New York were to the development of art and design in the 20th Century?

I am never one to shrink from a challenge, so Macklowe Gallery has applied to be an exhibitor at TEFAF in 2011. There is an impossibly long waiting list of qualified dealers, but since there is nobody on earth with our focus and expertise in our field, I am hopeful that we will move to the front of the line. How can there be a TEFAF without Hector Guimard, or Rupert Carabin? It is simply unthinkable to me; I hope you feel the same. Stay tuned and we’ll keep you informed of our efforts to represent the best of Art Nouveau at the most beautiful art and antique show on earth.