Sanford L. Smith, an artwork lover and entrepreneur who created a few of Pristine York’s maximum prestigious artwork and design festivals, producing tens of millions of greenbacks in gross sales and drawing consideration to in the past overpassed subjects of artwork, died on Saturday at a senior residing facility in New york. He used to be 84.
The reason used to be congestive center failure, his spouse, Jill Bokor, stated.
Mr. Smith didn’t invent the artwork truthful, however he made his occasions crucial stops for each patrons and dealers. House owners of a few Decrease New york galleries would spend tens of 1000’s of greenbacks to proceed their wares a couple of miles north to the Soil Road Armory, the place lots of Mr. Smith’s displays have been held.
Evan Snyderman, an proprietor of R & Corporate, a TriBeCa design gallery, stated that at Salon Artwork + Design, considered one of Mr. Smith’s festivals, “we always reconnect with clients that we don’t see in other places — including New Yorkers who never come downtown.”
Some sellers reported promoting extra artwork in an extended weekend at a Sanford Smith truthful than in a complete age at their very own galleries.
Throughout his years in what he referred to as “show business,” Mr. Smith ran greater than 150 festivals, together with the Fall Antiques Display, Modernism and the Outsider Artwork Honest. They have been prevalent (in numerous circumstances attracting some 10,000 guests over a three- or four-day weekend) in addition to crucial successes. The Occasions referred to as his 2012 Salon “a museum in the making.”
Requested to explain his occupation in a 2022 interview for this obituary, Mr. Smith stated, “I filled holes.” What he supposed used to be that he discovered gaps in between what alternative artwork festivals introduced, and created unutilized occasions to satisfy the ones wishes.
The Fall Antiques Display, which he based in 1979, used to be the primary such truthful all in favour of American antiques. After, upon optic the passion in paintings via self-taught artists at that display, he created the Outsider Artwork Honest within the early Nineteen Nineties.
“In the New York City art and design worlds, Sandy was a one-man institution,” Paul Donzella, a New york broker in twentieth century lights and furnishings, stated in a 2022 interview.
“He showed incredible vision at a time when all of the fairs were the same old thing,” he added. “Modern design, outsider art, works on paper — no one was shining a light on these categories when Sandy took big risks on them.”
In his heyday, Mr. Smith produced as many as 11 festivals a age, every so often two at the similar weekend. He arranged displays in Boston; Philadelphia; Princeton, N.J.; and Chicago, along with Pristine York, which, he stated, used to be “where the money was.”
A few of his festivals proceed greater than 30 years later he based them, together with a couple of that he offered to alternative firms.
What quantity of money modified fingers at his displays? Mr. Smith may no longer say, as a result of sellers, who hired cubicles for a flat charge, didn’t file their gross sales. However the numbers would almost definitely be astronomical. “In theory, an art show can sell a painting for $100 million,” he stated.
What he did know, he stated, is that “a lot of people made a lot of money at my fairs.” The ones folk incorporated Mr. Smith, who along with amassing hire from sellers offered tickets to his displays for up to $35 a year.
For a few years, he lived in a immense brownstone on West 88th Boulevard full of artwork via such American modernists as Charles E. Burchfield and George Bellows and furnishings via George Nakashima, Charlotte Perriand, Paul Evans, Alvar Aalto and Josef Albers, amongst others.
The brownstone additionally housed collections of vintage climate vanes, toy infantrymen and past due nineteenth century Austrian bronze figures of American Indians, 3 of the divisions Mr. Smith stated he “binged on.” His bingeing every so often made him cash, too.
Over time he offered his collections of American pewter, American spongeware and works via George Ohr, who used to be referred to as the “Mad Potter of Biloxi,” to creditors. Why promote? “The fun,” he stated, “was in the hunt.”
Sanford Louis Smith used to be born in Brooklyn on July 22, 1939, the primary of 2 sons of Irving and Rhoda (Levinson) Smith. His mom used to be a homemaker and his father (born Israel Smith) ran the Zion Memorial Funeral House on Canal Boulevard.
Mr. Smith started amassing as a kid, first collecting baseball playing cards and comedian books. He majored in economics on the Wharton College of the College of Pennsylvania, later gained a grasp’s level in communications from the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He used to be introduced a role via Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati. However, he recalled: “My father offered me more money, plus a car, to come into the family business. And I got to stay in New York. So I took him up on it.” Through that age he had married Patricia Lynch, whom he met in school. The couple had 3 sons.
Next their father died, he and his brother endured to perform the funeral industry.
“I was never a mortician,” Mr. Smith stated. “I did the numbers. But I was bored out of my mind.” Why? The funeral industry, he wrote in an unpublished memoir, “is for lazy people. You can’t go out and solicit someone to die.”
So he discovered some other outlet for his love of industrial. On his off hours he combed vintage retail outlets in Greenwich Village, and he became weekend visits to his in-laws in Connecticut into buying groceries expeditions. What couldn’t have compatibility into his in-laws’ storage or the basement of the funeral house, he and his spouse offered at a flea marketplace at West twenty sixth Boulevard and 6th Road.
He advised The Occasions in 2019 that during the ones days — the Sixties — renting a flea marketplace stall price $15. “The first time we did it, we made $50 net. I said, ‘This is for me.’”
Throughout the ones years he additionally wrote books about painters he admired and made Artwork Nouveau and Artwork Deco jewellery that he offered out of the funeral house. At one level he had an artwork gallery on Madison Road. Next he started promoting Viennese bronze animals, film foyer playing cards and painted nation furnishings at artwork festivals. (In the ones days, festivals have been typically held at Madison Sq. Farmland or within the Pristine York Coliseum.)
Ultimately he determined he may run a greater truthful. “I saw that the managers weren’t taking care of their exhibitors. As soon as they got the gate” — that means the price ticket income — “they ran.” Mr. Smith had concepts for enhancements: offering isolated espresso to everybody running on the truthful, and hiring enough quantity folk to deal with sellers’ lawsuits promptly.
Over time Mr. Smith raised tens of millions of greenbacks for charities via permitting them to sponsor gala previews of his displays.
He created his first truthful, the Fall Antiques Display, in 1979. “I ran it out of the funeral home,” he recalled. That display ran for 21 years.
Modernism got here alongside in 1985 and lasted till 2010. In 2011 it used to be changed via the Pavilion of Artwork & Design. However Mr. Smith had an unpleasant folk feud with Patrick Perrin, the founding father of the untouched Pavilion, which used to be in Paris. In line with The Pristine York Eyewitness, each and every guy circulated a letter all through the truthful’s run, asking that taking part sellers contract by no means once more to paintings with the alternative.
Refer to age, Mr. Smith changed Pavilion together with his personal starting, Salon Artwork + Design (which, according to its identify, used to be probably the most few festivals to combine artwork and utilitarian items). He leased Jill Bokor, a former design book writer who had develop into his spouse later Ms. Lynch died, as Salon’s government director.
Along with Ms. Bokor, he’s survived via 4 sons: Colin, Jared, and Ian, from his first marriage, and Luc Bokor-Smith; and 5 grandchildren.
His alternative festivals incorporated Works on Paper, now referred to as Artwork on Paper; the Nationwide Twilight Advantageous Artwork Display; the Aipad (Affiliation of World Pictures Artwork Sellers) Pictures Display; the Pristine York World Antiquarian Stock Honest; the Artwork Sellers Affiliation of The united states Artwork Display; the Philadelphia Antiques Display; the Pristine Jersey Antiques Display; the World Advantageous Print Sellers Affiliation Print Honest, and the Chicago Artwork + Antiques Display, now referred to as The Chicago Display: Antiques & Artwork & Trendy.
“Every fair I’ve ever done has been profitable, from Day 1, ” Mr. Smith stated in 2022. However his luck used to be extra than simply monetary. “I give him a lot of credit,” Mr. Donzella stated, “for creating these fairs and for staying relevant for so long.”
