I was delighted to find that my blog was rated as one of the ’50 Best Blogs’ for 2012 by Homes & Antiques magazine. All 50 were profiled in the August issue of the magazine, which was also the ‘vintage special’. The 50 top picks were divided up into different categories, from ‘Eat, Drink, Travel […]
As the nights grow chilly and draw in on us, there’s nothing more enjoyable than the cliché of curling up on a comfortable antique chair with a good book. Books about antiques and collecting that don’t focus on a particular subject area are rare, probably due to the potentially limited readership. Those that do get […]
My friend and fellow mid-century pottery fan Emiel Monnink of Retrominded and I were chatting online last week. I had just met a friend of his at the excellent Ardingly antiques fair, and he had just found a piece of Italian pottery for me to look at. I found the story fascinating, and (almost) completely […]
I’ve split my blog posts about antiquing in Mexico City into two, each focusing on different areas of the city, to make it easier to read. My first post, which covers the two nearby markets in the upcoming Roma Norte district, can be read by clicking here. If you’re looking for something more upscale than […]
When you’re researching a book, you invariably come across fascinating information which isn’t strictly related to the subject of the book, but really ought to be recorded anyway. When I was researching for my book on Michael Harris and his work at Mdina Glass and Isle of Wight Studio Glass (now out of print), my […]
I didn’t have high hopes of finding much of interest in the first leg of our annual holiday, which took us to Mexico City. Of course, the banker saw this as a good thing – a break for me from work. Mexico doesn’t have a great reputation for antiques. Even though it has been wealthy, […]
At the recent marvellous Antiques For Everyone fair at the NEC in Birmingham, a friendly dealer approached me with a folder of around 50 photographs of furniture, home accessories, and room designs. Her father was a teacher and had used them in the late 1950s and early 1960s as props for lessons. Since he retired, […]
2006 saw the 40th anniversary of Dartington Glass, one of the UK’s only surviving independent glass companies. To commemorate this event, Graham Cooley exhibited hundreds of pieces of Dartington Glass dating from 1967 into the 1990s from his private collection. In conjunction with that, I wrote and published a book with Eve Thrower, the daughter […]
It’s out and it’s on! Last Saturday I joined Graham Cooley at the King’s Lynn Arts Centre in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, to launch Alla Moda, the exhibition behind my latest book. With over 750 ceramics on display, Graham’s private collection is almost certainly the largest private collection of Italian ceramics in Europe, if not the […]
My new book on mid-century modern Italian ceramics, Alla Moda, has just arrived, and the exhibition is about to be launched. Sitting last night looking through the book made me remember the long journey I’ve made putting it together. I also thought about all the elements that went into making it, here are some statistics: […]
My next stop after seeing Ken Bull’s amazing collection of Mordan pencils was a darkened, quietly calm room where I met with a cool towel for my brow, more than one glass of something white and chilled, and a comfy chez longue. Once my equilibrium had been restored, it was back to Masterpiece to see […]
Although I’m very much a 20th century boy, my collections do vary quite widely in terms of date. One of my oldest, both in terms of the date of the objects themselves and the fact it was one of my first targets, is my collection of 19thC Mordan pencils. I’ve been collecting these since I […]