Antiques for Everyone (valid for one day between 27th & 30th March 2008)

Advanced tickets £8.00

Door Price £10.00

With more than 400 exhibitors from across the UK, Europe and America, Antiques for Everyone is the UK’s largest indoor, vetted antiques fair and a major international event for collectors and dealers.

A unique and fascinating collection of Chinese communist works of art and political memorabilia. Titled Mao: Art for the Masses, the display presents an extraordinary cultural record of a fascinating period of 20th century history. Belonging to antiques dealer and Chinese specialists Peter and Susan Wain, the exhibition brings together artefacts produced in China throughout the period 1949 to 1976, including the famous Little Red Book, collectable badges, political posters, ceramic busts, exquisite ivory carvings and lacquer plaques. With the complete disappearance of Maoist slogans, architectural monuments, sculptures, dresses, films, plays and mass parades from everyday life in China since the early 1980s, these artefacts are now a unique visual reminder of that historically significant period.

The objects have been carefully selected to offer insights into the changes of patronage, technique and style in the decorative arts. Some objects reveal the stories of the personal lives of the artists and their living conditions while others show the relationship between Maoist art and the doctrine of art for the masses. Most of the pieces were originally made for official distribution, international exhibitions and for selling overseas. They were primarily intended to project a desired image of New China to the rest of the world, the image of China as a re-born Utopia. However, many of the pieces rely on the historic traditions of Chinese culture, adapted to the new Maoist ethos of the period.

Mao: Art for the Masses will be on view for the four days of the fair and will be presented by Peter and Susan Wain.

Antiques for Everyone features around 400 specialist dealers in every area of antique collecting and period design. More than 100 dealers specialise in ceramics, at least 50 galleries will be showing fine art, around 30 dealers show furniture including Georgian, Victorian, Arts & Crafts and Art Deco; no fewer than 25 dealers specialise in silver and jewellery, while dozens of exhibitors show a wide range of collectables and decorative accessories including everything from 2,000-years-old antiquities to Steiff teddy bears, French clocks, fine engravings, working barometers, tea caddies, early tin-plate toys, scientific instruments, early arms and armour, garden statuary, kitchen antiques, decorative brass and copper, samplers, sculpture and textiles.

All exhibits are for sale and, with prices from less than £50 to more than £100,000; there is something for everyone. Collectors from all corners of the globe regularly attend and an estimated £10million worth of antiques will have changed hands during and after the fair. Most importantly, a committee comprising approximately 200 specialist experts inspects exhibits for quality and authenticity, ensuring that buyers can make their purchases with confidence.

The Antiques for Everyone fairs are organised by Clarion Events NEC and take place every spring, summer and winter.