I thought this year’s show at the Merchandise Mart was more visually interesting, and even an even higher level of quality then in any of the previous years I’ve been to the show.   Setting up at the show is an amazing experience on many levels.  Set up allows me the luxury of seeing  rare and sometimes startling objects being moved past my booth before the show opens up as everyone is trying to work their booths into beautiful room-like settings.  The enormous Mart building, two football fields long, fills up in just a few short days with antiques from all over the world as well as dealers from several different countries exhibiting their very best for this fair.  Click on images to enlarge.

My booth at the mart show had my usual mix of periods and styles that for some reason seem to work together.  I like to think of the pieces as all settling in together in the booth whether they like it or not.  Each piece seems to find to place to show off without competing with the others…or so I tell myself.

The 19th century framed botanical flowers formed a backdrop for the dark oak 18th century gate-leg table with a small grouping of santos figures on top.  Click on images to enlarge.

The santos shown in the previous photo replaced this grouping of 19th century candlesticks that sold one by one at the show.

I love this mix of art work on the back wall of the booth.  The top painting is by Guillermo Silva Santamaria, an artist from Bogota, Colombia below it is a painting by a St. Louis artist, Margery Dodson Imster.  To the left of the lamp are three 1920s stained glass window watercolor studies from the Emil Frei Art Glass Studios in St. Louis.  Click on images to enlarge.

Greta Von Nessen “Anywhere Lamp”, circa 1951 in original mint condition.  The lamp and the painting in the background found really good new homes.

The Italian gilt mirror on the back wall was a recent lucky find just a few days before the show.  The modernist painting on the right is by St. Louis artist Virginia Davis, it stayed behind in Chicago, now showing off on a new wall.

The 19th century European skull and crossbones pediment was lucky enough to find a new residence in the Windy City.

The soft whites of the walrus tusk and the shells play so well against the warm browns and grey color tones on the 18th century Russian table.  Click on image to enlarge.

The brass swan sculpture on the wall is by Curtis Jere.  To the left of the Jere are two French manikin forms, both the manikins and the Jere represent the variety of objects I bring to show and fortunately seem to be what I sell at the Mart as both stayed behind in Chicago.

The rare advertising poster behind the manikins announces Herman Miller’s opening of a store in New York City that would sell their furniture as well as fabrics by Alexander Girard and “sympathetic” decorative objects (those objects I would be curious to see.)  The poster must date from the late 1960s to early 1970s and is in mint condition.

My booth is on a corner so I have an outside wall to decorate.  At the beginning of the show the wall looked like this, and then after several things sold it evolved to the wall pictured below.  Click on images to enlarge.

The wallpaper stamps shown in the previous photo got replaced with a collection of vintage dog photos. Part of the fun of being at the show for so many days is seeing the other booths at the show change as items are sold and moved out and new things are brought in from storage and the booth redesigned.

I brought one of the showcases from the shop for displaying collections of objects.  The shelf has a collection of 19th century plaster heads and hands.

“Just say ah.”  Which is appropriate for this sculpture and is also a cool website showcasing the work of Adam Hughes.  You can check it out here.  The object in the image above was made as a European medical teaching aid in the 1930s.

One of my favorite pieces that I brought to the show was this balustrade from the Chicago Stock Exchange building designed by Louis Sullivan and Dankmar Adler and completed was in 1894. Click on images to enlarge.

Staying in downtown Chicago is an experience, however staying on the 33rd floor of a downtown hotel is a better experience.  This was our view from the Hotel 71.  Wacker drive is on the left and the Merchandise Mart is on the right past the wonderfully ’60s Marina Cities twin towers.  Every morning  starts off with a nice brisk walk to the mart with a quick stop for a morning shot of caffeine and then to the 8th floor for a visual feast for the eyes as the elevator doors open and the day of selling begins.  There is something about the energy of downtown Chicago and the Mart that makes going to the show a time to remember and something I very much enjoy.   Photos from other booths at the show as well as images from Art Chicago will follow in this blog soon.  Click on images to enlarge.

Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium is a world class aquarium.  Visiting the Shedd is very special to me.  Beyond the spectacular collection of marine life that the aquarium has in their collection, what makes the Shedd so incredible for me begins right at the front doors.  The carved marble door surround in the photo above hints at the aquatic fantasies in stone, bronze, terra-cotta, and plaster about to overwhelm you as you enter these doors.  You can check out the aquariums website here.  Click on images to enlarge.

John Shedd of Marshall Field department store fame donated 2 million dollars in 1924 to establish a world class aquarium in Chicago with “the greatest variety of sea life under one roof.”   The photo above shows a Greek key motif with a crab in the center supporting a huge tableau of sea-life all carved out of marble including two moray eels about to devour a crustacean.   It is interesting to think of the differences between design motifs of modern aquariums compared to this great 1920s example.  I doubt stone carved eels enjoying their meals would be considered an “appropriate” design element for young audiences today.   I am very thankful the architects of the Shedd thought differently.

This is an early postcard of the Shedd showing its Classical Greek architectural style.  Construction of the Shedd started in 1927 and was officially opened to the public in May of 1930.  Click on images to enlarge.

Bronze doors and wall panels with aquatic motifs.

Detail image of the vent panels between the doors.  Shells, coral, starfish, seahorses, lobsters, and jellyfish frolic together on these panels.  Click on images to enlarge.

Bronze exterior fixture mounted on marble from Georgia.  The fixtures in the Shedd were made by Chicago’s Sterling Bronze Co.  They were known for their fine casting work.

The starfish base of the exterior fixture has amazing detail.

I took these images while visiting Chicago just after Christmas which is why there are holiday decorations in the photos.  The entrance hall has these great octopus hanging bronze and art-glass fixtures.

I noticed this bronze octopus ball light on my first visit to the Shedd many years ago and have never forgotten it.  I keep hoping the prototype for the fixture will show up in some St. Louis house just waiting for me to discover it and move it into my house.  “Hope springs eternal,” according to Alexander Pope.

Bronze stingray sconce supporting an art-glass nautilus shell light.

Close-up image of the stingray sconce.  The craftsmanship in the bronze work at the Aquarium is really exceptional.

The bronze and glass clock was in a very dark area and hard to photograph but still worthy of showing here.  The “greatest variety of sea life”  that John Shedd spoke of is clearly exemplified here in this large clock hanging from bronze dolphins.

Glazed cast plaster border panel with shell motif.

These large fixtures remind me of theater lights from the same period.  The bronze and glass lights feature reverse glass hand-painted panels with everything aquatic, including a frog, a sea tortoise, as well as other assorted sea-life.

These colorful fish tiles were custom made by Pewabic Pottery Company.  Pewabic art pottery is well known to Arts and Crafts period collectors.  Pewabic also produced architectural ornamentation for public and private institutions in the early 20th century.  These tiles bring a nice bit of color and whimsy in an otherwise monochromatic Classical interior.  Mary Chase Perry Stratton was one of the founders of Pewabic pottery.  Her designs were used extensively throughout the Shedd Aquarium.

The “Trident of Poseidon”  takes center-stage with an assortment of aquatic and nautical motifs on the overdoor pediment.  Elaborate bas-relief plasterwork was used throughout the beaux arts interior.  I would venture a guess that the English and Italian craftsmen using shell motifs in the 17th and 18th centuries would approve of John Shedd’s vision of a world class aquarium structure worthy of the city of Chicago.  It’s like being in one really large European grotto except with the addition of many, many loud and exuberant children. Click on images to enlarge.

This artist presented some very curious sculpture and photography at the Chicago Artopolis Art Fair.   He filled these very traditional, rather ubiquitous snowdomes with snowy landscapes he creates in minute detail.  This one is of a woman confronting a giant man leaning against a tree.  The attention to detail is  very refined.  I would’ve enjoyed watching the casual observer take a quick second look at these domes while walking through the show.  There is so much artwork that screams for your attention that something like a snowdome goes unnoticed…until…. you really notice it.

The artist photographs the snowdomes and enlarges the image to the point where the whole perspective changes and we see these rather surreal, dreamlike creations become huge images.  Almost like a part of one of our dreams exposed, photographed, and mounted.

This snowdome has a man rounding a bend coming across rather large footprints in the snow, certainly not an everyday occurrence.  So is this about some person drama of confronting a possible threat or simply the humor in the possibility of really finding huge footprints on a snow trail ?