01. Galaxy Necklace & Earrings, ca. 1962.
Most people within and surrounding the design community are keenly aware of the modernist movement of the previous century. If I were to take a poll and query these people about who and what represents modernism to them I bet I would hear iconic names like Eames, Saarinen and Neutra plus a host of modern furniture and architectural designs associated with them. But modernism is much broader than this. Artisans who began the wearable art movement in the 1940′s certainly belong in this list, artisans like Art Smith whose work you see above and below.
02. Patina Necklace, ca 1959. (Inspired by Alexander Calder’s mobiles.)
Mr. Smith once wrote, “A piece of jewelry is in a sense an object that is not complete in itself. Jewelry is a ‘what is it?’ until you make it relate to the body. The body is a component in design just as air and space are. Like line, form, and color, the body is a material to work with. It is one of the basic inspirations in creating form.”
03. Metallic Boa Necklace, ca. 1964.
Toni Greenbaum in her book Messengers of Modernism writes…
In the early 1940′s a new movement in jewelry design was beginning in the United States. American artist craftsmen, ‘spurred on by the devastatation of World War II, the trauma of the Holocaust, the fear of the bomb, the politics of prejudice, the sterility of industrialization and crassness of commercialism chose to express their frustration with society’s conventions through the most intimate art form: Jewelry’.
On the back cover of the book, she further writes…
About 1947 I bought a pin… because it looked great, I could afford it and it identified me with the group of my choice—aesthetically aware, intellectually inclined and politically progressive.
That pin was our badge and we wore it proudly. It celebrated the hand of the artist rather than the market value of the material. Diamonds were the badge of the philistine.
(I am fortunate to have a copy of this book which I picked up in a discount book store years ago. Now that I see its current price I am all the more grateful I found it when I did!)
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>> Art Smith Collection at the Brooklyn Museum
>> From Village to Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith
(On exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum through February 21, 2010)
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I love that first piece…but the last one..ouch! None of it looks especially comfortable, but they are beautiful works of art!
Quite the statement jewelry, eh? From what I have read about the work, I understand these pieces are deceptively lightweight and comfortable. But you are right, they certainly do not look it. So striking.