Jewelry is art disguised
as attire. A piece of jewelry is an amalgamation of an artist's vision and the
material from which it is born, it is activated by context. A work of art is
brought to life through exhibition. Jewelry can be understood as a kind of
installation art that is only fully realized once incorporated into the
aesthetic of its wearer. Through its harmonies and discords with the wearer's
appearance and other stylistic choices, the piece is able to speak to both the
wearer's and the artist's individual points of view. Every time that the
overall aesthetic context is altered, whether through different garments or a
different wearer, a new aspect of that perspective is articulated.
We are living through
the most productive and creative period of jewelry design in history. Around
1970, a window opened, and for the past three decades we have seen an explosion
of jewelry as an art form. Whether producing for street fairs, the fashion market, or the luxury goods
industry, designers have an extended period to develop and push the medium.
The history of art jewelry,
craft vs. high art, and the jewelry market are just a few subjects that
contemporary jewelry designers are working with today. Jewelry design is always
continuous and fluid while simultaneously timeless.
Art jewelry is created
with a variety of materials, not just precious metals and gems, and forms a
counterbalance to the use of "precious materials" in regular (fine)
jewelry. Art jewelry should be compared to expressions of art in other media
such as glass, wood, plastics and clay.
An example of a current
trend in art jewelry is the use of modern synthetic materials such as
polypropylene, nylon, and acrylic. Art jewelers have developed techniques for
using these materials to dramatic effect.
Background of 20th Century Art Jewelry
Jewelry dates back as
far as the Cro-Magnon era and was used then, as now, to enhance beauty, to
suggest emotion, to indicate wealth and power, or as a symbol of spirituality.
In the early stages of the medium, choice materials were bones, teeth, and stones. As technology advanced, they
were joined by a wide array of metals, precious
gemstones and semi-precious stones, and eventually plastics, composite, and
synthetic materials. While jewelry was once an adornment reserved for the upper
classes, greater accessibility to and variety of materials have now made fine
jewelry available to a much wider range of consumers. For contemporary jewelry
designers, this combination of new materials and more diverse wearers allows
for infinite possibilities regarding the ways a piece of jewelry can be
conceived and presented.
In the late 19th
century, René Lalique revolutionized
art jewelry design through his emphasis on imagination and technical virtuosity
over precious materials and the imitation of past styles. Additionally, he
experimented with industrial techniques, plastic and glass.
The twentieth century
is where this rudimentary change in the public’s attitude towards jewelry
design and function is most apparent. Traditionally jewels were seen as sacred
and precious; however, notably beginning in the 1900s, jewelry has started to
be objectified. Additionally, no one trend can be seen as the history of
jewelry design for this time period. Throughout the twentieth century jewelry
design underwent drastic and continual style changes: Art Nouveau (1900-1918), Art
Deco (1919-1929), International
Style and organicism (1929-1946), New
Look & Pop (1947-1967), Globalization,
Materialism, and Minimalism. Jewelry design trends are highly affected by
the economic and social states of the time. The boundaries of styles and trends
tend to blur together and the clear stylistic divisions of the past are harder
to see during the twentieth century.
Though many consider art jewelry still part of crafts as
opposed to real "arts" (with its appropriate art critics), attitudes
are changing, particularly in Germany. In the 1960s and 1970s the German
government and commercial jewelry industry decided to foster and heavily
support modern jewelry designers, thus creating a new marketplace. They focused
in particular on combining contemporary design with their traditions of
goldsmithing and jewelry making. The first gallery for art jewelry only, "Orfevre", opened in Duesseldorf,
Germany, in 1965. At present, art jewelry is no longer a niche market, and many
designers are sold in regular jewelry stores.
Art Jewelry Exhibitions
The acceptance of
jewelry as art was fostered in the United States very quickly after World War
II by major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Walker
Art Center in Minneapolis, each of which held major shows of art jewelry in the
1940s. The Museum of Arts and Design formerly The American Craft Museum,
started their collection in 1958 with pieces dating from the 1940s. Other
museums whose collections include work by contemporary (American) jewelry designers
include: the Cleveland Museum of Art, The Corning Museum of Glass, the Mint
Museum of Craft & Design in Charlotte, NC, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian
museum.
Some famous artists
who created art jewelry in the past were Calder, Picasso, Man Ray, Meret
Oppenheim, Dalí and Nevelson. Some of which represented at Sculpture to Wear
Gallery in New York City which closed in 1977.
Artwear Gallery owned
by Robert Lee Morris continued in this endeavor to showcase jewelry as an art
form.
A collection of art
jewelry can be found at the Schmuckmuseum in Pforzheim Germany.
List of Art Jewelry Designers
Listed
in the decade in which they were first recognized:
1930s
Suzanne Belperron,
France, 1900-1983
1940s
Margaret Da Patta,
United States, 1903–1964
Art Smith, United
States, 1923–1982
1950s
Claire Falkenstein,
United States, 1908–1998
Peter Macchiarini,
United States, 1909-2001
1960s
Gijs Bakker, The
Netherlands, 1942-
Stanley Lechtzin,
United States, 1936-
Charles Loloma, United
States, 1921–1991
Olaf Skoogfors,
Sweden, 1930–1975
1970s
William Claude Harper,
United States, 1944-
Mazlo, Lebanon 1949-
France
Robert Lee Morris,
Germany 1947- United States
1980s
Peter Chang, England,
1944-, Scotland
Bruce Metcalf, United
States, 1949-
Beatrice Wood, United
States, 1893–1998
1990s
Andrea Cagnetti -
Akelo, Italy, 1967
Linda MacNeil, United
States, 1954-
2000s
Betony Vernon, USA,
1968
Rebecca Rose, USA,
1980
Top 10 Jewelry Brands in United
States According to Google*
1) Gucci (www.guccitimeless.com)
3) Sucre (sucrenyc.com)
5)
Jennifer Fisher
(jenniferfisherjewelry.com)
7) Gemfields (consumer.gemfields.co.uk)
8) Latest Revival (latestrevival.com)
9) Suzannah Wainhouse (www.suzannahwainhouse.com/Suzannah_Website/STORES.html)
10) Winifred Grace (winifredgrace.com)
Read
more about these jewelry designers and their works at... Top
10 Jewelry Brands in United States According to Google*
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