NEW YORK CITY — New York City is about to welcome a new, full-service auction house, as La Belle Epoque Auction Gallery sets to open its doors in January, offering a new auction experience to art and antiques lovers, dealers, collectors, first time buyers and consigners.
The La Belle Epoque Auction Gallery, at its two-level, 5,000-square-foot facility in the Meatpacking District/West Village, will provide a more personal approach to both buying and selling. Boutique New York auction houses who were thriving in the market through the 1980s and 1990s seemed to fall by the wayside due to skyrocketing Manhattan rental prices and other issues. While smaller, high-quality auction houses in
New York City seem to have all but disappeared in recent years, La Belle Epoque Auction Gallery hopes to fill that void.
The firm’s premiere auction will offer a range of hundreds of items, including a Modernist abstract painting “Sunset on the Beach” by Byron Browne, (American, 1907-1961) and six leather and chrome LC2 club chairs by Le Corbusier for Cassina.
Many in the art world already know the La Belle Epoque name from being a New York area vintage poster dealer and gallery, specializing in Art Nouveau, Art Deco and midcentury posters from the Belle Epoque
era to modern times (1860s to the 1990s). Clients and customers at La Belle Epoque Vintage Posters, which will remain a separate business, have enjoyed working directly with longtime owner/partners Linda Tarasuk
and Elie Saporta, developing long-term, friendly relationships. Tarasuk and Saporta recently formed La Belle
Epoque Auction Gallery, which came as a natural progression from their vintage poster business, flourishing since it opened in the mid-1980s.
The firm will launch with its premiere auction January 22, with online bidding through LiveAuctioneers and BidSquare The gallery will provide a comfortable atmosphere where people can browse at the previews, socialize a bit with neighbors and take part in the excitement of live auctions, all while following Covid-19 safety protocols.