The venerable Winter Antiques Show, New York’s longest-running vetted art and antiques fair, has always had a strong following among curators and connoisseur collectors. But over the past decade, the fair’s reputation has lost some of its glamour as tastes tilt towards contemporary. Facing new competitors—from the London-based Masterpiece fair to Tefaf encroaching on its Park Avenue Armory turf—the Winter Antiques Show has had to change tack.
Over the past two years, under the long-time executive director Catherine Sweeney Singer, the Winter Antiques Show has extended its cut-off date from 1969 to the present and has refreshed its look and feel. In 2016, Philadelphia’s Elle Shushan showed sombre American portrait miniatures against a fuschia backdrop. Apter-Fredericks, of London, staged its Regency and Queen Anne furniture in an apartmentlike setting with a windowed view of Manhattan at night.
