 | By LIZ PEEK February 22, 2007 |
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Heuichul Kim |
The business of selling antiques is getting tougher for dealers and shows. The Seventh Regiment Armory on Park Avenue, above, is charging higher rents for the many large antiques events held there. |
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If you're a collector of what the English refer to as "brown furniture," you are an endangered species. The beautiful Georgian mahogany and fruitwood pieces that grace traditional homes all over the country are most definitely "out," and the dealers who have long depended on them are suffering. As are the antiques shows that bring them together.
"Antiques is a four-letter word," said Meg Wendy. This is just one of the realities that faced Ms. Wendy five years ago as she took over the management of her family-owned business. Wendy Management has been a leading organizer of midlevel antiques shows for several decades, in New York and in other cities around America. In recent years, she has had to trim and reshape her company's offerings to keep abreast of collecting trends.
The company was founded by Clifford Nuttall in 1934. Inspired by a visit to the Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair in London, Mr. Nuttall launched the first-ever such event in America at the Commodore Hotel in New York. It was a great success, and the first of many.
In 1959, Meg Wendy's mother, Diane, went to work for Mr. Nuttall and in due course bought the business from its retiring founder. More accurately, her husband bought the business; Mr. Nuttall would not agree to sell to a woman. She proved him wrong by successfully expanding the company's reach and volume.
By the late 1980s, the company's high-water mark, it was hosting 18 shows each year. Many were in the New York area, including Westchester, Stamford, and Greenwich, but they also had events in Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C.
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