By:  Kim Kovel

We went to New York City to see the big fairs during art week. The Collective is a modern design fair that includes more affordable contemporary design and jewelry along with high-priced items. TEFAF is a dealer-owned fair from the Netherlands that made its debut this year. They have two fairs now in the United States. One is in the spring for 20th-century art and design and the other is in the fall for anything pre-20th century. This is by far the prettiest fair. The booths and flowers can look like stage sets. And the last fair we visited was one of the most famous ones for modern art, the Frieze.

However, the highlight of our trip was a behind-the-scene tour at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met). Many people do not associate the Met with modern decorative arts, now called design. But the museum has been acquiring important works since the first curator of modern decorative arts, Joseph Breck. Many important pieces acquired by Breck during his tenure at the museum, 1917 to 1933, were originally included in the first major show of Art Deco, the International Exhibition of Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris in 1925.

The current associate curator of modern decorative arts (which at the Met is anything after the Renaissance) is Christian Larsen. There hasn’t been a new design/decorative arts show for years, but Larsen is planning an exciting exhibition, “Ettore Sottsass: Design Radical,” that will open on the top floor of the Met Breuer on July 22, 2017. Part of Larsen’s challenge is to also increase the museum’s design/decorative arts collection from 1900 on. They have a small acquisition budget but are very interested in donations. If you or someone you know would like to make a donation, please call or email the museum.

Here are some highlights of the items I had a chance to view in the small modern decorative art storage area.