Americana & Folk Art Prompt Bidding Wars at Sotheby’s & Christie’s

Americana Week, for me, is January’s Christmas. The third week of this drab winter month in New York celebrates American decorative arts and folk art. Sotheby’s and Christie’s mount sales of old American furniture and silver, folk painting, duck decoys and weathervanes, samplers embroidered by teenage girls, and Chinese Export porcelain, among other relics of early American life. The art’s high on charm but also on craftsmanship. Design’s simple but very, very good. The old-timers believed that less is more. Spirits are high, too. The collectors and dealers are rarely snoots.

The Winter Antiques Show, now called the Winter Show, happens during Americana Week as well. It’s a colorful, collegial event. The art’s soothing, as nostalgia always is. Some of the dealers there have an Americana sideline but mostly sell American Old Masters such as Homer, Eakins, and the Hudson River crowd or Modernism. Most are American antiques dealers, many in venerable, family-run businesses and from the hinterlands. Americana dealers as well as the most ardent collectors know their stuff.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

Americana Week, for me, is January’s Christmas. The third week of this drab winter month in New York celebrates American decorative arts and folk art. Sotheby’s and Christie’s mount sales of old American furniture and silver, folk painting, duck decoys and weathervanes, samplers embroidered by teenage girls, and Chinese Export porcelain, among other relics of early American life. The art’s high on charm but also on craftsmanship. Design’s simple but very, very good. The old-timers believed that less is more. Spirits are high, too. The collectors and dealers are rarely snoots.

The Winter Antiques Show, now called the Winter Show, happens during Americana Week as well. It’s a colorful, collegial event. The art’s soothing, as nostalgia always is. Some of the dealers there have an Americana sideline but mostly sell American Old Masters such as Homer, Eakins, and the Hudson River crowd or Modernism. Most are American antiques dealers, many in venerable, family-run businesses and from the hinterlands. Americana dealers as well as the most ardent collectors know their stuff.