Behind the Scenes: The New York Winter Antiques Show, Part Two

by Jean Hubbell Asher

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The cost of doing the Winter Antiques Show in New York City for the dealers is very high: booth rentals, union labor costs, living expenses in the city for two weeks, truck and personal transport, food and drink all add to the cost.  These expenses, however, are overshadowed by the possibilities of dealing with an audience that is not only sophisticated, but motivated to buy.   Dealers have spent the entire year shopping for this particular marketplace and they know that a good show can guarantee a year’s income.  The public has also been waiting a year to see what these particular dealers have unearthed.

     The set up for the show is crucial to its success; the merchandise can and will stand on its own but its eye-catching presentation will help to ensure that, whatever the piece, it can’t be overlooked.  Needless to say, there is no margin for error and yet there are problems lurking around every corner.

     The weather can be one of those  lurking problems.  During one particularly memorable set up of the show, a major snowstorm greeted the day.  The normally short trip to the city took hours, not only for us, but also for our truck.  The snow never stopped falling during that day but our late arrival was the least of the problems to come.  The gymnasium floor was slushy and slippery; the room itself was freezing.  Anticipated deliveries never happened.  Our movements were slow and cautious on the slick surface as we didn’t want to fall, or worse still, let a piece of furniture fall.  We actually were among the lucky ones; we only had to move a short distance from home to the show.  A dealer drove from Michigan in tandem with the storm moving across the country. 

     One weather nightmare affected everyone - a democratic deep freeze.  The temperature outside hovered at zero degrees and with the back door to the Armory left open the temperature inside was the same.  It was so bitterly cold that the back door actually froze open. This became an issue of eminent domain.  Who was actually responsible for the door - the City of New York, the State or the military?  Our personal physical misery was less important, however, than the physical damage caused to antiques maintained even for a day at these temperatures. Porcelains and glass were brittle requiring kid glove care from our ski gloved hands.   We had a beautiful Queen Anne black lacquer table which actually split open after being exposed to temperature extremes - the sunless freeze inside the Armory during set up and the overheating of the space in order to compensate for the cold the next day  with the back door finally closed.

     There’s ice, snow, sleet...and then there’s rain.  The Armory had a fatal flaw; the roof leaked.  (I understand the problem has, at last, been corrected)  The leaky roof, though, was generally a manageable scenario. A dealer’s “precision engineered” furniture arrangement would give way to whatever odd configuration the leak demanded and a bucket for water would stand in lieu of the displaced pieces of furniture. The rains would let up and the booth would be put to rights.

     The union workers are all highly specialized.  During set up they deal methodically with each job in the order received and then move on to the next.  When there’s a problem, however, they all shift into crisis mode.

Our last year in the show gave us an intimate portrait of how incredibly kind and able these men were.  Our set up had been unusually difficult. Our right-hand man was sick and unable to be there.  My mother had been hospitalized until two days prior to set up and was, at best, limp.  Vetting had cost us some accessories which we felt were crucial to our display.

     On opening day I arrived alone at the Armory as my mother had a scheduled hospital visit. I had hoped to finish with the set up in time to make a favorable impression on the press who would be coming later that morning.  When a security man, Ronnie Smith from Pennsylvania,  met me at the door with a cup of coffee I should have known there already was a problem.  I didn’t; these men were after so many years old friends and, I knew, sensitive to the difficulties that had happened on the day before.  We chatted about the weather and the horrific rain of the night before as he walked me to the booth...and then I knew.

     The contents of our booth sat in the aisle along with the overhead lighting fixtures and the rug.  In fact, the aisle was impassable. Over the course of the next several hours union work crews were on  hands and knees drying the rug out with a hair dryer; they were wiping off furniture surfaces; reinstalling the track lights, slowly moving furniture back, hanging mirrors and bringing snacks.  The only thing they couldn’t do was to rewrite the elaborately detailed, but now soggy, price cards.  Miraculously, by the time my mother arrived a couple of hours later we were looking downright presentable.

     There’s a myth  that the unions are impossible to deal with.  Quite the opposite is true.

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     Personal sagas sometimes take center stage.  One dealer new to the show was, unbeknownst to anyone, having marital problems; his private life became more public, however, when a sheriff came to the show floor during set up to serve him with divorce papers.  The dealer returned just in time for the opening night festivities to a booth which was hardly presentable for the crowd at hand.  He never recovered from his inadequate set up.  His sales were nonexistent; he had missed the buzz of opening night.  When invitations were issued to exhibitors for the following year, his was not in the mail.

     Marilyn Quayle, as honorary chairperson for the show, found herself in the midst of an emerging crisis.  She was surrounded by the press and seemed to be the object of great scrutiny.  Lita Solis-Cohen, a senior reporter for Maine Antique Digest, told us that the story unfolding was not about Marilyn Quayle.  An out-of-state pair of dealers who were new to the show had created a wonderful presentation for their English antiques. They had a problem, though;  they had a silent partner who was laying claim to most items in their booth.  One by one, the sheriff ordered the removal of these pieces.  It was a husband and wife team who had so proudly set up their booth.  The husband was not much in evidence during the run of the show but I was always so impressed with how gamely the wife faced the show, day after day with reputation tarnished and little to sell.  Their invitation for the next year’s show was also not in the mail.
   It was always a leap of faith for a dealer to spend the first nine months of the year buying for the show and then wait for the invitation to come in September. For many dealers, most dealers, this issue was not germane but for the smaller dealers, the unspoken fear was: would they be replaced?  One dealer took issue with the whole process of  being terminated without recourse.  He instituted a lawsuit and the upshot was the formation of a Dealers’ Committee.  This committee attempts to address the issues of concern to the dealers to the Show Manager and the Winter Antiques Show Board.

     The dealer at the center of the storm got his second chance to exhibit.  He hired a well known designer - Reuben de Saavedra, now deceased -  to display his antiques against a smashing backdrop.  This was a desperation move for a dealer whose antiques were always uniquely displayed.  It seems that his exclusion from the show had nothing to do with presentation and he was, once again, dropped from the roster. This man was one of my personal favorites -  gentle, warm, civilized - and it was agonizing to watch his sense of rejection.  He continued to thrive in the business doing many other shows.  He was also the guiding light behind the formation of the Antiques Council, a consortium of dealers committed to presenting high end antiques shows and with a particular sensitivity to dealer requirements.  He died two years ago but has left a strong legacy with the formation of the dealer’s committee which continues on.

     Jack Dolan, the labor consultant,  preferred the early years of the show with its emphasis on Americana.  When Mario Buatta became chairman of the show in the early 80’s, however, his predilection was for European dealers. Mario likens the rift to the Republican/Democrat ideological (and yes, political) differences.  Needless to say, dealers specializing in Americana were not pleased with this new direction but there was more to come.  Mario said that the inclusion of European dealers was threatening to American dealers specializing in European antiques...they would now have to compete with the very dealers from whom they bought abroad.

     Along with an increasingly international flavor, there were many more changes under Mario’s aegis.  The bare green and white gymnasium floor was carpeted; dealers were encouraged to display their wares in a more 'salonish' setting. Everything about the show became more polished.  And with that came increased booth rentals and greater demands on the unions to implement more elaborate schemes.  Not everyone was amused.

     Along with this increased luster came a myriad of events, lectures, social gatherings...and they all came with higher price tags.  Despite the infighting, there were many benefits to these changes.  The Winter Antiques Show now marked the beginning of the social season in New York. Sotheby’s and Christies' piggybacked on the antiques audience in New York, offering their most important Americana auctions of the year.  Dealer trade skyrocketed, offsetting some of those additional expenditures. And for East Side House, whose original benefit from the first show in 1954 was $1,700...these changes were nothing short of miraculous.

     Arie Kopelman, the president of Chanel and now Chairman of the Winter Antiques Show, credits the new Show Director, Catherine Sweeney Singer, with running the show “seamlessly”...I suspect an overstatement.  As in years past, the professionalism of everyone involved creates that illusion for the public despite the difficulties encountered along the way.

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