The Winter Show 2022

Tiffany Studios, ‘Apple Blossom’ table lamp, circa 1900
COURTESY: Macklowe Gallery

THE GLOBAL SURGE of the Omicron variant in January caused the postponement of New York’s annual art, design and antiques fair The Winter Show. The two-month delay, however, has also provided an unlikely location for the fair’s 68^th iteration – 660 Madison Avenue. This 22-storey midcentury building was once the flagship department store of the bygone American luxury company, Barneys.

The Winter Show 2022 (render)
COURTESY: The Winter Show & Owen Walz

The temporary switch from the Park Avenue Armory – which has been synonymous with the event since its inaugural edition in 1955 – promises new programming opportunities for The Winter Fair, as well as a salute to Peter Marino, who designed the interior.

Paul Evans, ‘Patchwork Two Door Cabinet’, circa 1967
COURTESY: Paul Evans and Guy Regal

“Peter was the co-curator of our loan exhibition with the Hispanic Society Museum & Library in 2020 – so we are excited to take over a space renovated by him in the 1990s,” explains the fair’s executive director Helen Allen. “The collectors and visitors will experience fresh juxtapositions of historic and contemporary objects within an iconic modernist New York setting.”

Jean Dupas, églomisé mural panel from USS Normandie, circa 1930s
COURTESY: Maison Gerard

Allen also notes the transformation of an interior, designed to display fashion goods, to now exhibit objets d’art – ranging from contemporary wooden furniture, 20^th century European glass, through to objects from 17^th century China. The shoe vitrines on the carpeted fifth floor, for example, are used for an arrangement of jewellery by Méret Oppenheim and Antonio Carli. “We are not pretending to be at the Armory, but instead are taking advantage of a space with its own quirks and uniqueness,” the director adds.

Méret Oppenheim, ‘Husch Husch’ necklace, 1985
COURTESY: Didier Ltd.

The abundance of windows at 660 Madison Avenue allows natural light to wash over the diverse offering of art and design. Paul Evans’s two-door copper clad cabinet with copper, brass and pewter details from 1967 sits at Guy Regal’s booth; a 1928 walnut and oak cupboard-on-chest, by Gordon Russell, is offered by H. Blairman & Sons.

Gordon Russell, ‘Cupboard-on-chest’, 1928
COURTESY: H. Blairman & Sons Ltd.

Visit Maison Gerard’s stand to view wood craftsman Michael Coffey’s carved walnut fireplace from 2017, and furniture manufacturer Stackabl’s collaboration with four different designers for colourful seats with recycled materials. Joan B Mirviss Ltd. celebrates the Japanese aesthetic principle kazari  – the interplay of a specific art object with its spatial and temporal context  – exemplified here with the contemporary ceramics of Sawada Hayato, Seto Takemi and Maeda Masahiro.

Sawada Hayato, ‘Multi planar vessel’, 2021
COURTESY: Sawada Hayato & Joan B Mirviss

Besides a characteristic blank canvas, the venue’s other unique offering is a quartet of windows, now revived as mini exhibition sites facing the busy midtown street. While Ferguson & Shamamian Architects designed a window as an antique-filled classic New York living room in the aftermath of a cocktail party, the fair’s design council honorary co-chair Young Huh used another window to celebrate the impending spring with a de Gournay wallpaper dressed in hand-painted trees, backdropping Boccara’s 1965-dated Alexander Calder tapestry. Meanwhile, Phillip Jeffrie’s malachite-hued wallpaper, a ruby recamier sofa, a neoclassical table, and a gilt mirror populate the window created by the fair’s design co-chair Corey Damen Jenkins.

Alexander Calder, ‘Spirale’ tapestry hand-woven by Yvette Cauquil-Prince, 1965
COURTESY: Boccara

The easing of international travel, combined with the growing interest in collecting design, has meant that this year’s edition of The Winter Show has been eagerly anticipated. “Exhibitors and collectors alike are looking forward to the fair’s return – and a gamut of 5,000 years of design,” Allen says.