OLYMPIAN SWAGGER
by Brook S. Mason



Edging into its 40s while jostling for major-league attention, the Olympia International Art & Antiques Fair in London, June 5-15, 2008, sports a remarkably new-era guise, as contemporary and 20th-century design now take a dominant position among the predictable brown furniture, portrait miniatures on ivory and equestrian paintings presented by over 260 dealers. With that fresh injection of stylish, hipster antiques, including a Harley-Davidson 650 cc A10 Golden Flash motorcycle from 1952 with dealer Manfred Schotten of Oxfordshire (which sold in a nanosecond), the Olympia fair emerges a winner on the increasingly crowded global art-fair circuit.

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