November 5, 2024

Need a suit of armour or a Japanese robot? Get to @OlympiaAntiques

I decided I didn’t actually need a suit of armour, what with it not being 1453 anymore, but if you can’t resist all that shiny metal there’s one for sale at the Olympia Art & Antiques fair, on in London until 9th November. That’s not the only unusual item on display – there are also vintage Japanese robots, intricately carved Chinese chess sets and a pair of cannon. (De-activated and highly polished so not the thing if you’re tooling up for world domination).

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120 dealers are showing hundreds of works of art and design including furniture, paintings, jewellery, ceramics, glass and textiles. Every work on display has been vetted by an independent team of experts for authenticity, date and condition. The dealers’ booths are separated by neoclassical pillars and have white material roofs. These take away the cavernous feeling of some fairs and help create an illusion of individual shops rather than stalls.

There is a Damien and a Banksy for the contemporary crowd but otherwise the painting is generally modern or earlier – in style if not always date. Mostly figurative, the exhibits include a couple of Peploes and a Raoul Dufy lithograph series. The antiques range from retro kitsch to meteorites – these are billions of years old and make all the more usual items of antique furniture, glass and ceramics seem fairly new.

A daily tour points out some of the treasures on display, whilst the fair also hosts several talks and lectures. Being the centenary of the outbreak of WWI, the BADA lecture this year concerns the artistic commemoration of war and will be given by Andrew Sim.

Look out for…

Farmer with flat cap by Sir John Kyffin Williams at Haynes Fine Art.

Yellow Lilies by Mary Fedden at Manya Igel

Vintage motor racing posters at Hampton Antiques.

Wet evening at Piccadilly Circus by Arthur Hacker at Moore-Gwyn Fine Art

Ivon Hitchens sketches at The Canon Gallery

More details and tickets

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