The Journal of Advanced Appraisal Studies is the leading scholarly publication in the fine art and antiques appraisal community. I'm very pleased to have an article I wrote included for publication in the 2016 edition of the Journal forthcoming later this month.
Titled "An Introduction to Appraising Mid-Century Modern Furniture," it is written for a target audience of professional appraisers unfamiliar with Mid-Century Modern and 20th Century Design with the aim of providing them with a useful guide to help determine whether they have competency to complete an appraisal assignment on their own or whether they should consult with a Mid-Century Modern specialist such as myself.
A common refrain I hear from clients is disappointment that they feel the younger generations are not interested in antiques and instead want to furnish their homes all at once with new items from big-box stores. While of course this stereotype has many exceptions (I am one of them), it is a topic I think about a lot. As both a long-time antique lover and an appraiser who is younger than some of my colleagues in the field, I feel I have a perspective that bridges both worlds. After extensive time mulling the issue, several thoughts emerged which I outline in this post.
Choosing antiques over new furniture reinforces values that are frequently identified as important to many millennials.
Reason 1: It's good for the environment. The greenest item is the one that already exists, right? Purchasing an antique saves the expenditure of resources that would go into the production of a newly manufactured item. I'm certainly not the first to think of this--check out the UK-based website Antiques are Green (http://www.antiquesaregreen.org)
Reason 2: It's good for your health. Many newly manufactured furniture items contain toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde and acetone. This group of harmful chemicals are called Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and they continue to off-gas and release toxic fumes into your home for decades to come. Antique furniture was mostly produced without the use of these chemicals and any off-gassing of VOCs has long since ended.
This week I had the opportunity to visit the excellent exhibition "Pathmakers: Women in Art, Craft, and Design, Midcentury and Today" at the Nation Museum of Women in the Arts, which closes today. Organized and originally installed at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City, the exhibition was curated by Jennifer Scanlan and Ezra Shales.
The museum described the exhibition as presenting "dynamic women designers and artists from the mid-20th century and today making groundbreaking commercial and industrial designs, maintaining craft traditions, and incorporating new aesthetics into fine art.
Irving Harper was an extremely prolific mid-century modern designer whose contributions have only come to light recently as a fresh wave of scholarship has rediscovered his work and reattributed many of the iconic designs of George Nelson Associates to Harper rather than the firm's eponymous leader. Irving Harper was responsible for the famous Herman Miller logo, the Marshmallow Sofa, and the Ball Clock, among countless other notable designs, and the absence of acknowledgement of his authorship by George Nelson was a major reason he resigned in 1963 and founded his own firm which went on to create designs for clients such as Braniff Airlines prior to his retirement in 1983. In a 2001 interview with Paul Makovsky in Metropolis Magazine, Harper said, "I'm grateful to George for what he did for me. While he was alive I made no demands whatsoever. But now that he's gone, whenever the marshmallow sofa is referred to as a 'George Nelson design,' it sort of gets to me. I don't go out of my way to set things right, but if anybody asks me who designed it, I'm perfectly happy to tell them."
