Antiques aficionados turned out to admire the event’s best pieces plus support a local cause
Words by DIANE DORRANS SAEKS
The San Francisco Fall Show preview party, held at Fort Mason on Wednesday, Oct. 2, was a joyful night of chic antiques and other great discoveries.
Chicago designer Alessandra Branca, dressed in a dazzling Andrew Gn beaded jacket, debuted her dramatic hand-embroidered moiré silk wall coverings by de Gournay. “California ’50s oil paintings from Foster Gwin look dramatic with a handpainted silk background,” said Branca, just in from Paris.
Show chair Suzanne Tucker introduced honorary chair India Hicks to designer Timothy Corrigan and London designer Veere Grenney as Paul Wiseman, Brenda Mickel and James Hunter swooped into the Carlton Hobbs booth to look at Greek urns and other treasures. At Modernism, Martin Muller was showing a vivid series of paintings of artists’ studios by Santa Monica artist Damian Elwes and Kathy Best.
Allison Speer scooped up treasures from dealer Daniel Stein, including a Japanese lacquer chest-on-stand and a quartet of exquisitely painted chinoiserie panels — the following day they were installed in her San Francisco residence. Ken Fulk, Jonathan Rachman, Bunny Williams and Rachel and Claud Cecil Gurney all admired Hutton Wilkinson’s chinoiserie vignettes.
In his prized bay-view space, Paris dealer Benjamin Steinitz was showing Denise Hale a pair of 18th-century French chairs from Jayne Wrightsman’s admired collection. “Yes, they are beautifully carved and very much in the pure Wrightsman taste,” noted Hale, a longtime fan of Steinitz and a lifelong connoisseur of antiques.
Lindsay and Peter Joost, noted supporters of the European collections at the Legion of Honor museum, swooped in discreetly to admire a pair of 18th-century Extramadura gilded benches at Steinitz. Lindsay, eyeing a classical pair of Russian jasper urns, remarked: “Benjamin always finds the rare and unusual, and we love his taste.”
The San Francisco Fall Show: Art, Antiques, Design spanned four days and was this year themed “wanderlust.” The preview gala supported Enterprise for Youth, which empowers under-resourced minors in San Francisco to strive for their professional goals.
Feature image: A vignette at The San Francisco Fall Show Opening Night Preview Gala at Fort Mason Festival Pavilion. Photo by Drew Altizer Photography.
Oct. 4, 2019
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