COMPLIMENTARY COPY
Published Weekly By Joel Sater Publications www.antiquesandauctionnews.net
VOL. 42, NO. 44 FRIDAY NOVEMBER 4, 2011
Early 20th-Century Art Jewelry Showcased rt Nouveau, Arts & Crafts, Jugendstil, Skonvirke. These are the names of decorative arts movements that included jewelry which sprung up in countries around the world at the turn of the 19th century into the 20th. “Art Jewelry” which differs from the mainstream jewelry of this late Victorian/early 20th
A
Brooch, Louis Aucoc, French. Gold, enamel. P r i v a t e Collection.
nation. It was at once a reaction against the present, a look forward to the beginning of a new century, and often incorporating a reference to the past. Jewelry, like all of the decorative arts, departed significantly in this movement from mainstream tastes. The new art jewelry was initially meant to be worn and appreciated by a s e l e c t group of people with artistic tastes but as its
century period, had diverse influences and styles in each country, yet there is also a thread that links popularity grew them together. An exhibicommercial vertion that opened at The sions were proForbes Galleries, New York duced thereby making City, on October 29, shows them more widely available. striking examples of the variToday, even the more commercial ous movements side by side. output is recognized for its ele“International Art gant design and is widely collectJewelry: 1895-1925” ed. includes almost 200 pieces of The historical, political and jewelry and related decorasocial events which signaled the tive arts objects by seventychange in design direction diffive artists, that illustrate the fered in each country as did the connection between the jewelry materials, techniques, and movements to each other and to motifs that were employed. the corresponding decorative arts And yet there is an invisible in this time period. thread running through art The guest curator for the exhijewelry of the early 20th bition is Elyse Zorn Karlin, cocentury that ties the director of the Associa- Necklace, individual countries’ tion for the Study of Frank Gardner movements together. Jewelry & Related Arts Hale, American. Referred to by a and the publisher/exec- Gold, moonnumber of difutive editor of stone, Montana ferent names: Adornment Magazine. Arts & Crafts sapphire. Elyse is a noted lecturer Siegelson, New ( G r e a t and author whose pubBritain, York. lications include: USA), Jewelry and Metalwork in the Glasgow Style Arts & Crafts Tradition and (Scotland), Art Imperishable Beauty, Art Nouveau (France, Nouveau Jewelry (co-authored Belgium, USA), with Yvonne Markowitz, Rita J. S k o n v i r k e , Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan, ( S c a n d i n a v i a ) , Curator of Jewelry at the Jugendstil and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). S e z e s s i o n s t i l Her most recent curatorial project (Germany, Austria), was “Jewelers of the Hudson Stile Liberte or Stile Valley” at The Forbes Galleries, Florale (Italy), this past April through June. M o d e r n i s m e “International Art Jewelry: 1895- (Spain), there are as 1925” remains on view through many similarities March 17, 2012. and cross-references to In her Introduction to the be found as well as exhibition, Elyse traces the dif- clear differences. ferent jewelry design movements The Arts & Crafts showcased in the exhibition. Here Movement, born in Great are some of her observations. Britain, was more than anyTowards the end of the 19th thing else a reaction against century and in stark contrast to the mass production of jewthe dark and heavily ornamented elry and other goods. Spurred world of the Victorian era, a new by designer and social reformer design aesthetic emerged. It was William Morris, the artistic tenants to survive for roughly 30 years of influential art critic John Ruskin, until the rumblings of the Art artwork of the Pre-Raphaelite Deco period overshadowed it. painters (all of them revived This new artistic direction images of Renaissance times) dress emerged in many countries reform, and empathy for the around the world although the Suffragist movement, it was also impetus for it varied in each created with a desire to make
objects and jewelry affordable by all with aesthetic taste. Arts & Crafts jewelry was seen as an antidote to the design “malaise” caused by hundreds of the same brooches or necklaces being stamped out of sheets of metal. It was an attempt to return to the working jeweler’s roots…not only crafting, but also finishing, a piece by his own hand without a machine. Art Nouveau jewelry, which origiNecklace, nated in James Cromar France and Watt, Scottish. Gold, enamel, sapphire, pearl. Abbe Sands Collection.
Belgium, was created for a different market…for wealthy aesthetically minded individuals including the notorious women of t h e
P a r i s demi-monde, the courtesans kept by wealthy men. It had its roots in the dream-based Symbolist movement in art, literature and music, in a revival of the Rococo period in architecture and the decorative arts, and in a desire by the government to re-establish France as the leader in luxury goods. The country had suffered a humiliating defeat in the FrancoPrussian war and h a d fallen
cious materials, sometimes mixing them with those that were unusual like horn, as their clientele was both artistically minded and financially welloff. In some of the new art jewelry in other countries we see a melding of influences of both the English movement and that of Art Nouveau… sometimes being produced side by side, and at other times combined into a single piece of jewelry. In Germany and Austria, there were two schools of thought. Some of the jewelry followed the highly original and inventive, more geometric Austrian Seccessionist style of the Wiener Werkstatte, while others followed the curvilinear style of French Art Nouveau. But it should be recognized that the artists of the Wiener Werkstatte had interaction with and were influenced by Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Macintosh and his wife Margaret MacDonald. They are today considered part of the Arts & Crafts genre. Even master jeweler René Lalique was exposed to English Arts & Crafts while exhibiting in
working in a vacuum, ideas were exchanged, read about, and viewed even beyond Europe. American artists traveled to England, read The Studio Magazine, (published in London but with international distribution) and the German magazine Jugend, and attended lectures by important British artists who visited the States. The name Georg Jensen is best known to us from the Danish skonvirke (aesthetic work) movement but there were many other Danish artists who did important work like Mogens Ballin. He trained as a painter in Paris where he surely was exposed to the works of the Symbolists. Ballin opened a workshop in Denmark later in his life to make beautiful everyday objects of metalwork, based on the ideals of William Morris and John Ruskin. It was he who hired the young aspiring sculptor Georg Jensen, who had previously apprenticed as a goldsmith, and allowed him to find his calling of creating highly sculptural jewelry. And we can see the influence of Lalique in some of Jensen’s earliest pieces as well. While certain aspects of a country’s oeuvre might be dominant in the work its artists produced, it is by no means sacrosanct. For example, the technique of plique a jour (enamel with no back that allows light to pass through it) was used predominantly by French and Belgian Bracelet, Leila Tai Shenkin, American. Gold, plique-a-jour. Courtesy of the Artist.
jewelers and Limoges enamel is more often found in English pieces. Yet Englishman Fred Partridge created plique a jour pieces that some might say are akin to those of the master French jeweler René Lalique and additional English jewels created with plique a jour can be found. Recently the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston acquired an important plique a jour brooch (converted from a hair comb) designed by the Guild of Handicraft, among the first makers of Arts & Crafts jewelry in England. This piece is certainly atypical for the Guild but shows the crosscurrents between movements and countries. The Forbes Galleries is located at 62 Fifth Avenue, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 12th Street in New York City. Visit the website, www.forbesgalleries.com, for hours, etc. For more information on the exhibition or about her other projects, contact Elyse Zorn Karlin by e-mail, at ekarlin@usa.net.
behind England, the United States, and Germany as an industrial power. London, and Art Nouveau design also the famed English enamellist clearly reflects a strong con- Alexander Fisher studied in flict in the Frenchman’s psy- Limoges, France. The point is that che regarding the role of no one was women as they struggled for the right to go to institutions of higher learning, work outside the home, and to no longer be considered simply as an adjunct to men. The jewelry differed most noticeably from Arts & Crafts Movement jewelry because for the most part this genre was the work of accomplished goldsmiths. They had apprenticed to established shops and were then able to segue into creating fantastical and exotic Art Nouveau jewels. Their work as experienced jewelers allowed them to create pieces of staggering beauty and imagination. They also differed from Arts & Crafts pieces in that the French makers Brooch, Riker Bros., American. Plique a jour, gold, diamond. The Newark Museum Collection. did not shun the use of pre-
MORE PHOTOS ON PAGE 5