London’s Grosvenor House hotel has a Great Room, but it’s just not good enough for a modern-day art fair. After three-quarters of a century, organizers have decided that the Grosvenor House Art & Antiques Fair is no longer profitable and won’t be back for 2010.

The decision by the hotel and the British Antique Dealers’ Association was portrayed as mainly economic: The relatively small basement space required a week for set-up and another to dismantle the fair, meaning the Great Room was out of commission for three weeks to produce a one-week show. The current recessionary pressures did not help, though the fair was actually created in 1934, during the Great Depression, as a way of boosting sales in a down market.

One difference now is competition. For the second half of its existence, Grosvenor House has had a rival in the Olympia International Art & Antiques Fair, held in a huge 19th-century exhibition hall made of iron and glass. Olympia is sunlit and far more spacious, can accommodate larger works, and is in talks with American art-fair specialist David Lester, who wants to expand its role as a major international destination. Grosvenor also lost some of its long-time high-profile exhibitors this year to the inaugural Master Paintings Week, billed by its creators as an alternative to the fair.

Read more at Bloomberg.