Antiques may be timeless, but the biannual show organized by the Houston Antiques Dealers Association was starting to feel dated.
Fifty years after the association was founded in 1964, it disbanded this February, the day after the last HADA antiques show closed. In its place is the rebranded Houston Antiques+Art+Design Show, whichwill take
place for the first time this weekend.
“HADA was a great organization but all the members were volunteers running the show,” said David Lackey, owner of David Lackey Antiques and Art, and a former HADA member. “Years ago, it was pretty easy to get volunteers together to lick envelopes and send out invitations, but the modern world is more complicated, and HADA members didn’t have
expertise or time to run a national show.”
The rebooted show will welcome goods made in the 20th and 21st century and will expand to include a new balance of Houston sellers including Lynn Goode Vintage, Past Era Antique and Estate Jewelry and William Reeves Fine Art.
Vendors will more than double, from under 50 at the February show to approximately 125.
The event will now be put on by Dolphin Promotions, which produces more than a dozen antiques shows throughout the country, including Los Angeles Modernism, NewYork 20th Century Art and Design Fair and the Chicago Summer Antiques Show and Sale. The Houston Antiques+Art+Design show will be the
company’s first production in Texas.
“HADA was doing nothing wrong; it was a great show. Traditionally, everything in these shows is about antiques, but things change and times change. Adding art and design opens it up to more people,” said Rosemary Krieger, Dolphin Promotions founder and president. “There are plenty of antiques collectors — the South is a traditional antiques area—but a lot of younger 40-somethings collect 20th-centurymodernism, and we wanted to open the door to a younger audience.”
Round Top shows
The annual spring show will move from its traditional weekend in February to the last weekend in March, which gives vendors the option to come to the Houston show before heading to the popular antiques shows in Round Top.
“That was the first thing I did when I bought the show,” Kreiger said. “That allows its dealers to come from far away. As a dealer, you know if you’re going to rent a truck and go on the road, you want several opportunities to sell.”
HAADS will include sellers from around the country and beyond. Two exhibitors will come from Paris, one from England and others from Uruguay, Panama and Bolivia.
European antiques
Bernard Vandeuren of Vandeuren Galleries in West Hollywood, Calif., will sell his European antiques for the first time in Texas at HAADS.
“I like [Rosemary Krieger’s] old-fashioned approach,” he said. “She’s selective on who she invites and it’s an eclectic mix: modernism, jewelry, antiques, New Mexican. All this has a certain great synergy and it puts the Houston show more on
the national map.”
Will the change in focus and more national (and international) vendors change the character of the show? Lackey says we’ll have to wait and see. “Overall, I’m incredibly optimistic,” he said. “When you have the same event every year, you might become a little bored with it. People are excited to see what the changes are.”