A lap of LAPADA

The highlights of the LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair 2014

On Tuesday, the LAPADA Art & Antiques Fair in London opened with a champagne fuelled collectors’ preview and a reception to mark Butchoff Antiques revealing the winner of their Contemporary Design Award competition.

Given the limitations of its location in Mayfair’s Berkeley Square, LAPADA is a much smaller fair than Frieze Masters and Masterpiece in terms of its size. It focuses on what the FT’s Gareth Harris describes as catering to a “primarily middle market” and features around 100 exhibitors alongside a licensed brasserie and an outpost of the superbly eccentric cocktail bar Mr Fogg’s.

Undoubtedly one of the most fascinating stands at LAPADA this year is that of the Hampshire based firm Wick Antiques. Though specialists in maritime works of arts, an eye-catching item amongst their showcase is a mahogany framed and hide covered gentleman’s 1920s gaming chair. Designed and made to the patent of Albert Gleinster, an inventor and chair maker from High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, this unusual piece of furniture features a leather footrest and arms with compartments for cards and two decanters and a glass. Priced at £8,500, here, indeed, is a piece of furniture that would have certainly delighted Phileas Fogg.

Elsewhere, a £32,000 Brian ‘Braaq’ Shields (1951 – 1997) painting of a fish and chip shop on the Haynes Fine Art of Broadway is one to seek out. ‘Braaq’s’ style is very similar to that of L. S. Lowry and given one of his works sold for a record £56,000 in March, it could well be worth buying now to avoid missing out later.

Another fine work, on display on the stand of the London, Manhattan and Costwolds dealership Trinity House Gallery, is an oil on canvas by Gustave Loiseau (1865 – 1935). Titled ‘Le Quartorze Julliet a Paris’ and dated 1925, this Post-Impressionist painting is priced at £195,000 and features the ‘en treillis’ cross-hatching brush stroke he is best known for. Steven Beale of Trinity House describes it as the “star piece” on the firm’s stand.

An oil on canvas by the “defining artist of Wales during the 20^th century” Sir Kyffin Williams KBE, RA, RCA (1918 – 2006) of the Llanberis Pass is equally impressive. It is striking, dominated by the artist’s favoured olive-green colours and the Willow Gallery of St James’s gallery seek £75,000 for it.

On Tuesday, on the Butchoff Antiques stand, alongside 18^th and 19^th century furniture, mirrors and objects, a design by Giulia Liverani of an ‘E-Scritoire’ was revealed as the winner of a competition that had been organised to mark the 50^th anniversary of the company.

Described as “combining functionality and innovative design” and “inspired by 18^th and 19^th century furniture”, the small writing cabinet or portable laptop table was described by Liverani – a student at Kingston University– as a “piece of furniture to accommodate and enhance the contemporary act of written, electronic communication”. It is displayed for visitors to see on Butchoff’s stand at the entrance to the fair.

The LAPADA Fair is open daily until 28^th September. Single admission tickets cost £15 per person.

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