Art jewelry is one of the names given to jewelry created by studio craftspeople in recent decades. As the name suggests, art jewelry emphasizes creative expression and design, and is characterized by the use of a variety of materials, often commonplace or of low
economic value
In economics, economic value is a measure of the benefit provided by a goods, good or service (economics), service to an Agent (economics), economic agent, and value for money represents an assessment of whether financial or other resources are ...
. In this sense, it forms a counterbalance to the use of "precious materials" (such as gold, silver and gemstones) in conventional or fine jewelry, where the value of the object is tied to the value of the materials from which it is made. Art
jewelry
Jewellery (or jewelry in American English) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment such as brooches, ring (jewellery), rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the ...
is related to
studio craft in other media such as
glass
Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...
,
wood
Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...
,
plastic
Plastics are a wide range of synthetic polymers, synthetic or Semisynthesis, semisynthetic materials composed primarily of Polymer, polymers. Their defining characteristic, Plasticity (physics), plasticity, allows them to be Injection moulding ...
s and
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...
; it shares beliefs and values, education and training, circumstances of production, and networks of distribution and publicity with the wider field of studio craft. Art jewelry also has links to fine art and design.
While the history of modern art jewelry usually begins with modernist jewelry in the United States in the 1940s, followed by the artistic experiments of German goldsmiths in the 1950s, a number of the values and beliefs that inform art jewelry can be found in the
arts and crafts movement
The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America.
Initiat ...
of the late nineteenth century. Many regions, such as North America, Europe,
Australasia
Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...
and parts of Asia have flourishing art jewelry scenes, while other places such as South America and Africa have been developing the infrastructure of teaching institutions, dealer galleries, writers, collectors and museums that sustain art jewelry.
Terminology

Art historian Liesbeth den Besten has identified six different terms to name art jewelry, including contemporary, studio, art, research, design, and author, with the three most common being contemporary, studio, and art. Curator Kelly L'Ecuyer has defined studio jewelry as an offshoot of the studio craft movement, adding that it does not refer to particular artistic styles but rather to the circumstances in which the object is produced. According to her definition, "Studio jewelers are independent artists who handle their chosen materials directly to make one-of-a-kind or limited production jewelry..... The studio jeweler is both the designer and fabricator of each piece (although assistants or apprentices may help with technical tasks), and the work is created in a small, private studio, not a factory." Art historian Monica Gaspar has explored the temporal meaning of the different names given to art jewelry over the past 40 years. She suggests that "avant-garde" jewelry positions itself as radically ahead of mainstream ideas; "modern" or "modernist" jewelry claims to reflect the spirit of the times in which it was made; "studio" jewelry emphasizes the artist studio over the craft workshop; "new" jewelry assumes an ironic stance towards the past; and "contemporary" jewelry claims the present and the "here and now" in contrast with traditional jewelry's eternal nature as an heirloom passing between generations.
The art historian Maribel Koniger argues that the names given to art jewelry are important in order to distinguish this type of jewelry from related objects and practices. The use of the term "conceptual" jewelry is, in her words, an "attempt to detach oneself through terminology from the products of the commercial jewellery industry that reproduce cliches and are oriented towards the tastes of mass consumption on the one hand, and, on the other, the individualistic, subjectively aestheticising designs of pure craft."
Critique of preciousness
Art jewelers often work in a critical or conscious way with the history of jewelry, or to the relationship between jewelry and the body, and they question concepts like "preciousness" or "wearability" that are usually accepted without question by conventional or fine jewelry. This quality is a product of the critique of preciousness, or the challenge of art jewelers in the United States and Europe to the idea that jewelry's value was equivalent to the preciousness of its materials. Initially, art jewelers worked in precious or semi-precious materials, but emphasized artistic expression as the most important quality of their work, linking their jewelry to
modernist
Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
art movements such as
biomorphism,
primitivism
In the arts of the Western world, Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that means to recreate the experience of ''the primitive'' time, place, and person, either by emulation or by re-creation. In Western philosophy, Primitivism propo ...
and
tachisme
__NOTOC__
Tachisme (alternative spelling: Tachism, derived from the French word ''tache'', stain; ) is a French style of Abstract art, abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. The term is said to have been first used with regards to the ...
. In the 1960s, art jewelers began to introduce new, alternative materials into their work, such as
aluminium
Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...
and
acrylics, breaking with the historical role of jewelry as a sign of status and
economic value
In economics, economic value is a measure of the benefit provided by a goods, good or service (economics), service to an Agent (economics), economic agent, and value for money represents an assessment of whether financial or other resources are ...
or portable wealth. As the focus on value gave way, other themes took its place as the subject of jewelry. Writing in 1995, Peter Dormer described the effects of the critique of preciousness as follows: "First, the monetary value of the material becomes irrelevant; second, once the value of jewelry as a status symbol had been deflated, the relation between the ornament and the human body once again assumed a dominant position - jewelry became body-conscious; third, jewelry lost its exclusiveness to one sex or age - it could be worn by men, women and children."
History
Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau jewelry

The art jewelry that emerged in the first years of the twentieth century was a reaction to Victorian taste, and the heavy and ornate jewelry, often machine manufactured, that was popular in the nineteenth century. According to Elyse Zorn Karlin, "For most jewelers, art jewelry was a personal artistic quest as well as a search for a new national identity. Based on a combination of historical references, reactions to regional and world events, newly available materials and other factors, art jewelry reflected a country's identity while at the same time being part of a larger international movement of design reform." Initially art jewelry appealed to a select group of clients with artistic taste, but it was quickly picked up by commercial firms, making it widely available.
There are many different movements that contributed to the category of art jewelry as we know it today. As part of the English
Arts and Crafts movement
The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America.
Initiat ...
, flourishing between 1860 and 1920,
Charles Robert Ashbee and his
Guild and School of Handicraft produced the earliest arts and crafts jewelry in a guild setting. Presenting their work as an antidote to industrial production, the first generation of arts and crafts jewelers believed that an object should be designed and made by the same person, although their lack of specialist training meant that much of this jewelry has an appealing handmade quality. Responding to changes in fashion, as well as the Victorian taste for wearing sets, arts and crafts jewelers made pendants, necklaces, brooches, belt buckles, cloak clasps and hair combs that were worn solo. Arts and crafts jewelry also tended to favor materials with little intrinsic value that could be used for their artistic effects. Base metals, semi-precious stones like opals, moonstones and turquoise, misshapen pearls, glass and shell, and the plentiful use of
Vitreous enamel
Vitreous enamel, also called porcelain enamel, is a material made by melting, fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing, usually between . The powder melts, flows, and then hardens to a smooth, durable vitrification, vitreous coating. The wo ...
, allowed jewelers to be creative and to produce affordable objects. In addition to Charles Robert Ashbee, other significant figures in the movement included
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...
, whose design philosophy emphasized a return to traditional craftsmanship, and
John Ruskin
John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...
, whose writings promoted the rejection of industrialization in decorative arts. Scottish architect
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Charles Rennie Mackintosh (7 June 1868 – 10 December 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, water colourist and artist. His artistic approach had much in common with European Symbolism. His work, alongside that of his wife Margaret Macd ...
contributed to Arts & Crafts aesthetics by incorporating stylized floral and geometric motifs into jewelry and metalwork.
T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, who first coined the term ‘''Arts & Crafts''’ in 1887, played a crucial role in spreading its ideals. Additionally,
Henry Cole,
Owen Jones
Owen Jones (born 8 August 1984) is a left-wing British newspaper columnist, commentator, journalist, author and political activist.
He writes a column for ''The Guardian'' and contributes to the ''New Statesman'', ''Tribune (magazine), Tribune ...
,
Matthew Digby Wyatt, and
Richard Redgrave helped establish the foundation for the movement by advocating for thoughtful design and high-quality craftsmanship.
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau ( ; ; ), Jugendstil and Sezessionstil in German, is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. It was often inspired by natural forms such as the sinuous curves of plants and ...
jewelry from France and Belgium was also an important contributor to art jewelry. Worn by wealthy and artistically-literate clients, including courtesans of the Paris demimonde, Art Nouveau jewelry by
René Lalique
René Jules Lalique (; 6 April 1860 – 1 May 1945) was a French jeweller, medallist, and glass designer known for his creations of glass art, perfume bottles, vases, jewellery, chandeliers, clocks, and automobile hood ornaments.
Life
Lalique ...
and
Alphonse Mucha
Alfons Maria Mucha (; 24 July 1860 – 14 July 1939), known internationally as Alphonse Mucha, was a Czech painter, illustrator, and graphic artist. Living in Paris during the Art Nouveau period, he was widely known for his distinctly stylized ...
was inspired by
symbolist art, literature and music, and a revival of the curvilinear and dramatic forms of the
rococo
Rococo, less commonly Roccoco ( , ; or ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpte ...
period. As Elyse Zorn Karlin suggests, "The result was jewels of staggering beauty and imagination, sensual, sexual and beguiling, and at times even frightening. These jewels were a far cry from the symmetrical and somewhat placid designs of Arts and Crafts jewelry, which more closely resembled Renaissance jewels." Lalique and other art nouveau jewelers quite often mixed precious metals and gemstones with inexpensive materials, and favored
plique-a-jour and
cabochon
A cabochon (; ) is a gemstone that has been shaped and polished, as opposed to faceted. The resulting form is usually a convex (rounded) obverse with a flat reverse. Cabochon was the default method of preparing gemstones before gemstone cuttin ...
enamel techniques.
Other important centers of art jewelry production included the
Wiener Werkstatte in Vienna, where the architects Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser designed jewelry in silver and semi-precious stones, sometimes to be worn with clothing also created by the workshop. The Danish Skønvirke (aesthetic work) movement, of which Georg Jensen is the most famous example, favored silver and native Scandinavian stones and an aesthetic that falls somewhere between the tenets of art nouveau and arts and crafts. Art jewelry in Finland was characterized by a Viking revival, coinciding with its political freedom on Sweden in 1905, while modernisme in Spain followed the lead of art nouveau jewelers. Art jewelry was also practiced in Italy, Russia and the Netherlands.
In the United States, arts and crafts jewelry was popular with amateurs, since unlike ceramics, furniture or textiles, it required only a modest investment in tools, and could be made in the kitchen. One of the first American arts and crafts jewelers,
Madeline Yale Wynne, was self-taught and approached her jewelry as form and composition with the emphasis on aesthetic qualities rather than skill, stating that "I consider each effort by itself as regards color and form much as I would paint a picture." Brainerd Bliss Thresher, another American arts and crafts jeweler, used materials like carved horn and amethyst for their aesthetic qualities, following the example of René Lalique who mixed quotidian and precious materials in his jewelry. As Janet Koplos and Bruce Metcalf suggest, whereas the British Arts and Crafts movement tried to reunite art and labor, many upper-class Americans like Thresher united art and leisure: "The practice of craft as a recreation could be a relief from the pressure of a difficult job, a demonstration of one's good taste and ''savor vivre'', a polite manifestation of progressive politics, or an expression of the sheer pleasure of satisfying labor." Several other American jewelers made significant contributions to the Arts and Crafts movement.
Marie Zimmermann, a highly versatile metalsmith, blended influences from Egyptian, Greek, and Asian art in her jewelry designs.
Florence Koehler, a founding member of the Chicago Arts and Crafts Society, taught jewelry and metalsmithing and incorporated
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
influences into her designs after studying jewelry and enamelwork in London.
Janet Payne Bowles, a jewelry designer and educator, contributed to the advancement of handcrafted jewelry and metalsmithing through her international exhibitions and decades-long teaching career.
Art jewelry fell out of style in the 1920s and 30s, overshadowed by
Art Deco
Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...
, as well as audience response to its functional and aesthetically challenging nature (too fragile and outrageous). However, it marks a significant break with what came before, and laid down many of the values and attitudes for later twentieth century ideals of art or studio jewelry. As Elyse Zorn Karlin writes, "Art jewelry valued the handmade and prized innovative thinking and creative expression. These jewelers were the first to use materials that did not have the intrinsic value expected in jewelry, and they rejected mainstream jewelry tastes. They thought of their work as an artistic pursuit and made it for a small audience that shared their aesthetic and conceptual values."
File:René lalique, pettorale libellula, in oro, smalti, crisoprazio, calcedonio, pietre lunari e diamanti, 1897-98 ca. 01.jpg, ''Dragonfly Lady'' brooch by René Lalique
René Jules Lalique (; 6 April 1860 – 1 May 1945) was a French jeweller, medallist, and glass designer known for his creations of glass art, perfume bottles, vases, jewellery, chandeliers, clocks, and automobile hood ornaments.
Life
Lalique ...
, made of gold, enamel, chrysoprase, moonstone, and diamonds (1897–98)
File:Louis Aucoc02.jpg, Carved horn decorated with pearls, by Louis Aucoc ()
File:Louis Aucoc00.jpg, Translucent enamel flowers with small diamonds in the veins, by Aucoc ()
File:Louis Aucoc01.jpg, ''Flora'' brooch by Aucoc ()
File:Tiffany and Company Iris Corsage Ornament Walters 57939 Detail croped.jpg, A corsage ornament by Philippe Wolfers (1900)
File:Broche with Woman - René Lalique.JPG, Brooch with woman by Lalique
File:Necklace (3922815556).jpg, Necklace by Charles Robert Ashbee (1901)
File:Philippe Wolfers for Wolfers Frères - Nikè brooch - 1902 - Collectie Koning Boudewijnstichting - Voormalige verzameling Marcel Wolfers.jpg, ''Niké'' brooch by Wolfers (1902), collection King Baudouin Foundation, depot: KMKG-MRAH
File:Paul follot, pettine con aquilegie, 1904-09 ca, corno, oro, smalti, acquamarine.JPG, Brooch of horn with enamel, gold and aquamarine by Paul Follot (1904–1909)
Modernist jewelry
The history of art jewelry is tied to the emergence of
modernist
Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...
jewelry in urban centers of the United States in the 1940s. According to Toni Greenbaum, "Beginning about 1940, a revolutionary jewelry movement began to emerge in the United States, and this was then spurred on by the devastation of World War II, the trauma of the
Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
, the fear of the bomb, the politics of prejudice, the sterility of industrialization, and the crassness of commercialism." Modernist jewelry shops and studios sprung up in New York City (Frank Rebajes, Paul Lobel, Bill Tendler, Art Smith, Sam Kramer and Jules Brenner in Greenwich Village; and Ed Wiener, Irena Brynner
and Henry Steig in midtown Manhattan) and the Bay Area on the West Coast (
Margaret De Patta,
Peter Macchiarini,
Merry Renk
Merry Renk (born Mary Ruth Gibbs; July 8, 1921 – June 17, 2012), also known as Merry Renk-Curtis, was an American jewelry designer, metalsmith, sculptor and painter. In 1951, she helped to found the Metal Arts Guild (MAG), and served as i ...
,
Irena Brynner, Francis Sperisen and
Bob Winston). The audience for modernist jewelry was the liberal, intellectual fringe of the middle class, who also supported modern art. Art historian Blanche Brown describes the appeal of this work: "About 1947 I went to Ed Wiener's shop and bought one of his silver square-spiral pins... 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 (or one of a few others like it) was our badge and we wore it proudly. It celebrated the hand of the artist rather than the market value of the material."
In 1946 the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
in New York organized the exhibition Modern Handmade Jewelry, which included the work of studio jewelers like Margaret De Patta and Paul Lobel, along with jewelry by modernist artists such as
Alexander Calder
Alexander "Sandy" Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobile (sculpture), mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, hi ...
,
Jacques Lipchitz
Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Lithuanian-born French-American Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, domi ...
and
Richard Pousette-Dart. This exhibition toured the United States, and was followed by a series of influential exhibitions at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Kelly L'Ecuyer suggests that "Calder's jewelry was central to many of the museum and gallery exhibitions of this period, and he continues to be viewed as the seminal figure in American contemporary jewelry." Using cold construction and crude techniques that suggested a spirit of improvisation and creativity, Calder's jewelry shares his sculpture's use of line and movement to depict or imply space, creating jewelry that often moves with the wearer's body. A strong connection with art movements is a characteristic of American art jewelry during this period. While Calder showed a
primitivist interest in African and ancient Greek art, Margaret De Patta made jewelry that was
constructivist, manipulating light, space and optical perception according to the lessons she learned from
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Kingdom of Hungary, Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by Constructivism (art), con ...
at the
New Bauhaus in Chicago. Toni Greenbaum writes that "After his mentor, the painter John Haley, showed him work by
Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...
and
Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
, Bob Winston exclaimed: 'That's the kind of crap I'm doing!'." The materials of modernist jewelry—organic and inorganic non-precious substances, as well as found objects—correlate to
cubist,
futurist
Futurists (also known as futurologists, prospectivists, foresight practitioners and horizon scanners) are people whose specialty or interest is futures studies or futurology or the attempt to systematically explore predictions and possibilities ...
and
dadaist
Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...
attitudes, while the styles of modernist jewelry—
surrealism
Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
, primitivism,
biomorphism and constructivism— are fine art movements as well.
File:Margaret De Patta Brooch.jpg, Brooch made of sterling silver and quartz designed by Margaret De Patta ()
File:Art smith, spirali in diminuzione, 1958 ca.jpg, Spiral necklace by Art Smith ()
File:Peter macchiarini, spilla, 1960 ca.jpg, Brooch by Peter Macchiarini ()
File:Merry Renk-Craft Horizons 1961 36 bracelet.png, Gold bracelet of interlocking forms by Merry Renk
Merry Renk (born Mary Ruth Gibbs; July 8, 1921 – June 17, 2012), also known as Merry Renk-Curtis, was an American jewelry designer, metalsmith, sculptor and painter. In 1951, she helped to found the Metal Arts Guild (MAG), and served as i ...
(1961)
Art jewelry since the 1960s

The postwar growth of jewelry in the United States was supported by the concept that jewelry-making techniques, believed to strengthen hand and arm muscles and foster eye-hand coordination, played a role in physical therapy programs for veterans of World War II. The War Veterans' Art Center at the Museum of Modern Art, led by Victor D'Amico, the School for American Craftsman, and the workshops run by Margret Craver in New York City, addressed the needs of returning American servicemen, while the
GI Bill of Rights offered free college tuition for veterans, many of whom studied craft. As Kelly L'Ecuyer suggests, "In addition to individual creativity, the proliferation of craft-based education and therapy for soldiers and veterans in the United States during and after the war provided a stimulus for all studio crafts, especially jewelry and metalsmithing. Public and private resources devoted to veterans' craft programs planted the seeds for longer-lasting educational structures and engineered broad interest in craft as a creative, fulfilling lifestyle."
By the early 1960s, graduates of these programs were not only challenging the conventional ideas of jewelry, but teaching a new generation of American jewelers in new university programs in jewelry and metalsmithing courses.
[Strauss, Cindi, "A brief history of contemporary jewelry, 1960-2006", in Cindi Strauss (ed.), ''Ornament As Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry From the Helen William Drutt Collection'', Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2007, p 17 ] Architectonic jewellery was being developed around the same time.
In the 1960s—1970s, the German government and commercial jewelry industry fostered and heavily supported modern jewelry designers, thus creating a new marketplace. They combined contemporary design with traditional goldsmithing and jewelry making. Orfevre, the first gallery for art jewelry, opened in Duesseldorf, Germany, in 1965.
Exhibitions

The acceptance of jewelry as art
[ Ilse-Neuman, Ursula. ''Inspired Jewelry''. Museum of Arts and Design and ACC Editions, 2009 ] 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
The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), based in Manhattan, New York City, collects, displays, and interprets objects that document contemporary and historic innovation in craft, art, and design. In its exhibitions and educational programs, the ...
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 Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...
, The
Corning Museum of Glass
The Corning Museum of Glass is a museum in Corning (city), New York, Corning, New York, United States, dedicated to the art, history, and science of glass. It was founded in 1951 by Corning Incorporated, Corning Glass Works and currently has a ...
, the
Mint Museum
The Mint Museum, also referred to as The Mint Museums, is a cultural institution comprising two museums, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Mint Museum Randolph and Mint Museum Uptown, together these two locations have hundreds of collecti ...
of Craft & Design in Charlotte, NC, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the list of largest art museums, 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 painting ...
, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Renwick Gallery of the
Smithsonian museum
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, education and research centers, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trus ...
.
Some famous artists who created art jewelry in the past were
Calder,
Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, Ceramic art, ceramicist, and Scenic ...
,
Man Ray
Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American naturalized French visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, ...
, Meret Oppenheim,
Dalí and
Nevelson. Some of which represented at Sculpture to Wear Gallery in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
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
Pforzheim () is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city of over 125,000 inhabitants in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, in the southwest of Germany.
It is known for its jewelry and watch-making industry, and as such has gained the ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
.
List of jewelry artists
Listed in the decade in which they were first recognized:
[
1930s
* Suzanne Belperron, France, 1900-1983][Musée des arts décoratifs, Paris, France - Art Deco and Avant-Garde Jewelry - March 19th, 2009 to July 12th, 2009](_blank)
/ref>
1940s
*Margaret De Patta, United States, 1903–1964[Margaret de Patta exhibit in Oakland Museum, California](_blank)
*Art Smith, United States, 1923–1982[Art Smith jewelry exhibition in the Brooklyn Museum](_blank)
/ref>
1950s
* Claire Falkenstein, United States, 1908–1998
* Peter Macchiarini, United States, 1909-2001
* Ramona Solberg, United States, 1921–2005
1960s
* Gijs Bakker, The Netherlands, 1942-
* Kobi Bosshard, Switzerland / New Zealand, 1939-
* Stanley Lechtzin, United States, 1936-
* Charles Loloma, United States, 1921–1991
* Olaf Skoogfors, Sweden, 1930–1975
1970s
* Noma Copley, United States, 1916-2006
* Arline Fisch, United States, 1931-2024
* William Claude Harper, United States, 1944-
* Mazlo, Lebanon / France 1949-
* Robert Lee Morris, Germany / United States, 1947-
1980s
* Warwick Freeman, New Zealand, 1953-
* Lisa Gralnick, United States, 1953-
* Bruce Metcalf, United States, 1949-
* Alan Preston, New Zealand, 1941-
* Bernhard Schobinger, Switzerland, 1946-
1990s
* Andrea Cagnetti - Akelo, Italy, 1967-
* Karl Fritsch, Germany / New Zealand, 1963-
* Linda MacNeil, United States, 1954-
* Lisa Walker, New Zealand, 1967-
* Areta Wilkinson, New Zealand, 1969-
* Nancy Worden, United States, 1954-
2000s
* Rebecca Rose, USA, 1980-
* Betony Vernon, USA, 1968-
See also
* Metal Arts Guild of San Francisco
* Jewellery
Jewellery (or jewelry in American English) consists of decorative items worn for personal adornment such as brooches, ring (jewellery), rings, necklaces, earrings, pendants, bracelets, and cufflinks. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the ...
* Wearable art
References
Further reading
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{{Jewellery
Visual arts media
Types of jewellery
Jewellery making
de:Autorenschmuck
hr:Umjetnički nakit
ja:アンティーク・ジュエリー