NEW YORK.- Eleven years on from its launch in 1994 The International Fine Art Fair remains one of the premier events in the international fairs calendar, with an impressive line-up of many of the world’s leading fine art dealers and a superlative display of paintings, drawings and sculpture spanning 700 years of European art from Old Masters to Modern Masters and including fine examples from the American Schools. All works are for sale under the strictest vetting conditions.

As important to museum buyers as it is to private collectors and connoisseurs, The International Fine Art Fair offers some of the finest works to be found on the market today and for the 2005 show organisers Brian and Anna Haughton are particularly delighted to announce that the fair returns to the Frick Collection for its opening night gala benefit. The Frick, which held benefits at the fair from 1994-1996, will hold a cocktail party on the floor of the fair on the 12th of May.

The 54 exhibitors from Europe, the Far East and the United States bring not only a balance of paintings, sculpture and drawings, but also a wide range of periods and styles from Old to Modern Masters.

There is a very small turn-over of exhibitors, as most have returned, including such well-known firms as Didier Aaron (London, Paris and New York), Agnews (London), Jean-Luc Baroni (London), Colnaghi/Katrin Bellinger (London), Richard Green (London), Galerie Cazeau-Béraudière (Paris), Galerie Berès (Paris), W.M. Brady (New York), Thomas Colville Fine Art (New York and New Haven, CT), Galerie Hopkins-Custot (Paris), Jack Kilgore & Co. Inc. (New York), MacConnal-Mason Gallery (London) John Mitchell & Son (London), Jill Newhouse (New York), Neffe-Degandt Fine Art (London), Moretti s.r.l. (Florence), Gerald Peters Gallery (New York), Flavia Ormond Fine Arts (London), Galerie Schmit (Paris), Stoppenbach & Delestre (London), Hollis Taggart Galleries (New York), Talabardon & Gautier (Paris), Galerie Tamenaga (Paris, Tokyo and Osaka), Galerie Thomas (Munich) and Adam Williams Fine Art (New York).

Ben Elwes, the respected London dealer in Old Master and British Paintings, will be unveiling a rare painting by the acclaimed Welsh artist Thomas Jones (1742-1803). Jones is best known for his oil sketches on paper painted directly from nature. Larger oils on canvas, such as A Neapolitan Coastal View from Pozzuoli (38.5 x 29ins, 97.8 x 73.6cm), are particularly scarce as he was a wealthy man and did not have to undertake commissions. This easel picture was painted in 1781 during the artist’s most inspired period when he lived in Naples. Jones was the subject of a major exhibition at the National Museum and Gallery, Cardiff, the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, and the National Gallery, London, in 2003/4.

There are more sculptures in the 2005 fair, due to the addition of sculpture specialists along with long-time exhibitors in paintings and drawings who are also bringing sculpture this year.

The new exhibitors are Trinity Fine Art from London with Old Master paintings, drawings and sculptures, Thomas le Claire, from Hamburg, who returns to the fair, after an absence, with Old Master and 19th century drawings, and Galerie Dumonteil from Paris and Sladmore Gallery from London making their debuts with modern sculpture. The other new galleries joining the eminent line-up of exhibitors is Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts, American art specialists; Berry-Hill Galleries of New York, specialists in 18th, 19th and early 20th century American paintings and sculpture, contemporary American Art, Modern European paintings, and Old Master paintings; Ben Elwes, a London specialist in Old Master and British Paintings; Hill Stone of New York bringing Old Master prints and drawings.
The Loan Exhibition Economic Models: The Art of the Figure From the Federal Reserve Board, Washington, D.C. features a selection of figural works, mostly by American artists, drawn from the art collection amassed by the Federal Reserve Board, Washington D.C. The Director of their Fine Arts Program is Mary Anne Goley and the curator of this Loan Exhibition is Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt.

’Models” and “figures’ are here not about interest rates set by the Federal Reserve Board, Washington, D.C., which was established in 1913 to provide the U.S.A. with a more stable monetary and financial system. “Models” and “figures” instead are the subjects of the works in this loan exhibition, drawn from the more than 300 paintings, drawings, prints and a handful of sculptures that have been amassed by “the Fed.”

In 1971 Richard M. Nixon issued a presidential memorandum encouraging all federal agencies to promote art and artists. Four years later, the Fed hired Mary Anne Goley, a specialist in American painting, as director of its Fine Art Program, with a mandate to create a collection to enhance the workplace and to provide its many foreign visitors with a memorable introduction to American artistic and cultural values. The paintings she has acquired by gifts and fundraising for purchases (banks and bankers may not be solicited!), hang in offices throughout the three buildings that the “Fed family” calls home.”

The works chosen for this exhibition demonstrate the breadth and high quality of the Collection in paintings and sculpture from the 19th and 20th centuries. Included are works by George Cochran Lambdin, Frederic-Auguste Batholdi, Henry Bacon, Edith Mitchell Prellwitz, Richard Miller, Karl Heinrich Gruppe, Minna Citron and Louis O. Guglielmi.

The Federal Reserve Board will continue to acquire works for its collection, whether gifts from friends of the “Fed family” from ambassadors who want their countries’ culture represented on the walls of this august institution or through the astute fundraising and purchasing of Mary Anne Goley.

The International Fine Art Fair runs from Friday, May 13 through Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at the Seventh Regiment Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York 10021. Hours for the fair are 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. except Sunday, 11:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. Admission is $18 and includes the catalogue. For further information please call (212) 642-8572 (public information).

Anna and Brian Haughton also organize The International Asian Art Fair (April), The International Art + Design Fair (October) The International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show (October), all New York fairs, and The International Ceramics Fair & Seminar in London June 16-19 at The Park Lane Hotel, Piccadilly, London.