Celebrating the World of Fine Art, Antiques and Design: The British Antiques Dealers’ Association – BADA Week 2021

This week is the British Antiques Dealers’ Association Week 2021, which is running until the 17th of October. BADA Week is a nation-wide series of events to celebrate the diverse and outstanding community the BADA represents. To highlight the benefit of visiting their members’ galleries, exhibition spaces, collections and specialities in person with an exciting offering of events both in person and online.

We are excited to be collaborating with BADA in the creation of the event logo in our vivid colour, ‘Invisible Green’. Edward was asked to help choose a colour that reflected and reinforced the heritage and underlying green credentials of the antique world. Edward is a long-standing supporter of the art and antiques industry and a firm believer in the eco nature of the industry,

“Antique dealers have to know a great deal as the field is large, the substantiation of value crucial and dealers’ offerings can span many centuries. I have learnt so much talking to them over the years and seldom met one without a passion to share their knowledge and enthusiasm.”

Antiques are the ultimate recycled products – made from mainly natural materials, endlessly repairable and useful for generations. Edward says that “In the antiques I have bought, I feel the human narrative of those discerning enough to have pre-owned them and those skilled enough to have created them. They bring me quiet joy and endless fascination.”

Edward spoke to Kathryn Singer of the BADA to talk all things antiques and natural paint. Here is a snippet of what they spoke about:

K: Could you touch a bit on the eco nature of your paints, and in relation to antiques? Do you think this should be discussed more in the wider trade? You obviously have a firm background in antiques and know that some parts of the trade are not as focused on this as others. 

E: Well, big question. I think you’ve got to literally hate your fellow man to not be concerned about the pressures that we are putting on the planet. We should nourish it and look after it. The idea that you just extract resource from the Earth, scar it, and then just do with that stuff what we do in the polluting way we do it, so that it then gets transferred from its harmless state into gaseous stuff that is literally warming the planet, really there is no discussion to be had. If you know that’s happening, you must want to change it. Everybody who is lucky enough to own an estate, to have anything to do with wood, to be in the antiques trade, where you’re not making much new, repurposing resources, I think that you might say, “fine, I can tick a box, I’m clean and green”, but we should look further than that. Perhaps, the next time I send something to a client, I’ll think more about the transport, how it’s wrapped, and so on. Frankly, in marketing terms, the trade is missing a trick.

K: And there’s such an appetite for it from the buyer’s side, people are more educated about this than they were, you know, five years ago. People are now coming with those questions and are aware of how it affects their future.

E: Yes, and I think the one thing we’ve learnt selling paint is: by being honest, we can’t lose, really. I think that we can all just be a little bit more conscious of that.

K: I saw that you decorated a space in the House & Garden Festival in 2018, so we’re going back a few years here, but I was excited because you included several BADA Members’ stock in your design.  What’s your ethos or inspiration when it comes to mixing the old and new?

E: It’s quite, sort of, today’s thing. It’s not hard if you’ve got a Lucien Freud and a Gainsborough. In that is the answer, really. If it’s on an equal level quality-wise. 

K: So, quality works well with quality, then.

E: I think so, because design intent has no boundaries, really. But, if you design well, then it should stand the test of time. You might have a 17^th century coffer, and hang a regency mirror over the top, and no one would think you were doing anything odd. And yet, there’s 300 years between them.

K: Yes, and I think sometimes that ultra-modern spaces actually complement antiques quite well, particularly ones going further away from modern times.

E: I agree, and I think that what’s exciting in a room is if the things in it, like objects, have dialogue with each other. Modern furniture isn’t really aiming for that, and it leaves me cold if I’m honest. But rooms that are intriguing, like when the curves of a piece of antique furniture speak to something else, and those elements are what leave you chattering away once you’ve left it.

K: So, if someone is new to choosing colours to accent the art and antiques in their home, what tips would you have for them? Like, if someone can’t get away from using magnolias, or whites, or off-whites, if they want to go bolder, what would be some tips for that?

E: I would just ask them to reflect on why everything they own has got some colour. If it is a piece made of wood, that wood has got the colour it’s got because the tree brought up minerals from the soil, grew, and so its pigmentation is from the Earth. Before modern chemistry, essentially that’s where all paint materials had to come from as well. What I think you need to combine this harmoniously is that common language, which I call tonality. In every colour, even our stronger colours there are earth pigments. Earth pigments are like seasoning in cooking, like salt and pepper, and every dish needs a bit of seasoning. The one colour that never existed in the past is Brilliant White.

K: Basically the most unnatural of all colours, Brilliant White.

E: Exactly. So, if you want to fail in my opinion, just go and get that.

We are so pleased we could support BADA Week through the recreation of their logo using our colour ‘Invisible Green’. Thank you to Kathryn Singer for her wonderful words and interview with Edward.