Imperishable Beauty: Art Nouveau Jewelry. “A new, imperishable beauty,” was how the artist and architect Henry van de Velde described it. European Art Nouveau jewelry of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries embraced a new aesthetic characterized by sensuous forms, dramatic imagery and vivid symbolism. Read More →
At the Copenhagen firm C.C. Herman, Petersen learnt silver and goldsmithing methods. He joined the Georg Jensen Solvsmedie in 1948 and worked in the hollow-ware department until 1976. His 1975 Bottle Opener, made of stainless steel soldered with brass, received a lot of attention.
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Florence Koehler was an American artist, craftsperson, designer, and jeweller, professionally active in Chicago, London and Rome. She was one of the best-known jewellers of the Arts and Crafts movement that flourished in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In Chicago, Koehler’s jewellery in a crafts style was fashionable in artistic circles. Koehler became one of the American crafts-revival leaders in jewellery, related more to French than English styles.Read More →
In 1919, he joined as a designer in the family firm, 6 rue Royale, Paris; he was a friend of Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard. Between 1920—25, he collaborated on Le Corbusier’s and Amédée Ozenfant’s review L’Esprit Nouveau: Revue International d’Esthétique. In his jewellery, he developed a liking for abstract compositions. From 1931, his jewellery designs were characterized by pure and simple geometry. In 1929, abandoning the Société des Artistes Décorateurs, he became a founding member of UAM (Union des Artistes Modernes). Read More →
Ward Bennett (1917–2003) was a New York designer, sculptor, textile, jewellery, industrial, and interior designer. At the height of his career in the 1960s and 1970s, he stood for an American aesthetic against more prevalent European trends.
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Maison Gripoix, a French costume jeweller, was located in Paris. Around 1890, Maison Gripoix sold glass beads and buttons wholesale. Subsequently, specialised in handmade imitations of precious and semi-precious jewels, including parures for Sarah Bernhardt.Read More →
Koppel had his debut as a sculptor at the Artists’ Authumn Exhibition in 1935 with an expressive portrait bust. He was also represented with drawings on several exhibitions. His best works as a sculptor are the busts of Valdemar and Jytte Koppel (1938 and 1942, both in black granite) and Tora Nordstrom Bonnier and Karl-Adam Bonnier (both 1944).Read More →
Louis Rault (1847 – 1903) was a French Sculptor, engraver, silversmith and jewellery designer.Between 1868 and 1875, Rault worked in the Boucheron workshop on the Place Vendôme in Paris. At the end of the nineteenth century, he set up a workshop where he produced silver and jewellery in the Art Nouveau style.Read More →
In 1925 Marcel Boucher arrived in New York from France and went to work for Cartier as a jeweller. Eventually, he leaves there and makes shoe buckles, possibly for Trifari. At this time, jewellery is all flat, without high modulation. Marcel started his firm in the Thirties, and his first line is an extraordinary group of bird pins made with coloured stones and bright enamels. Nothing like this has ever been done before.Read More →
In 1928, Oreste Pennino registered a series of 12 trademarks used from 1926 and illustrating signs of the Zodiac. The firm produced bracelets, rings, clips, earrings, lockets, and brooches and, from 1947, watches and watchcases. Its wares were designed in the forms of flower bouquets, fruit, leaves, and trees in rose, pale and dark blue, and violet. The firm closed in 1961.Read More →
Jean Goulden was a French painter, musician, and crafter who lived from 1878 to 1946. During World War I, he found Byzantine enamels near Mount Athos in Macedonia. His Cubist pendulum clocks were some of his best pieces. Only 180 of his items are known to exist.Read More →
Hammer was head of one of Norway’s largest silversmithies. He was best known for his plique-a-jour enamelled spoons popular with tourists and exported in large quantities. He produced the ‘Norwegian brilliant enamel work’ spoons offered in the 1896 and 1898 Christmas catalogues of Liberty, London. Read More →
Harry Bertoia was a sculptor, printmaker, jeweller, and furniture designer. He was born in San Lorenzo, Udine, and worked in the United States professionally. During World War Two he worked with Ray and Charles Eames on moulded-plywood technology. He worked primarily as a sculptor from the mid-1950s onwards. His sculpture was prominently featured in many of Eero Saarinen’s buildings.Read More →
Judith Leiber (1921 – 2018) was a prolific designer whose fanciful minaudières had accessorised royalties, first ladies, and film stars, and entered the collections of art the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While her couture handbags—carried by celebrities such as Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Claudette Colbert, Björk, and Barbara Walters—are widely regarded as works of art, Leiber preferred the word “artisan” to “artist.”Read More →
Borje Rajalin is a Finnish Jewellery Designer.
Rajalin worked at Bertel Gardberg’s silversmith from 1952 – 1956. His design work included technical equipment, plastic fittings, cutlery, stainless steel table and cookware and with Anti Nurmesniemi in 1972 a train for the Helsinki Railway. They collaborated with station designers to make the metro stations modern and chic. Rajalin produced silver designs for Bertel Gardberg and jewellery for Kalevala Koru. He taught at Taideeteollinen Oppilaitos and was the director of Taidetelinen Ammattikoulu in Helsinki.Read More →
Alma Eikerman (1908 – 1995) was an American jewellery designer and silversmith. Eikerman was born in Pratt, Kansas, and graduated from Kansas State College in Emporia with a B.Sc. in 1934 and an M.Sc. in 1942. Read More →
Jean Schlumberger (1907–1987), one of the most accomplished artists of the twentieth century, produced objects of unrivalled beauty. He was a man of exquisite taste, a jeweller who created extraordinary jewelled statements with a feeling of depth and life. Read More →
Hermann Junger was one of the best goldsmiths in Germany. His creative jewellery had a big impact not only in Germany, but also all over Europe and the U.S. He studied at the Staatliche Zeichenakademie, Hanau.Read More →
Boucheron was a French court jeweller with branches in Paris, London, Biarritz, and New York. Founded by Frederic Boucheron (1858). Famous for elaborate diamond jewellery during the late 19th century. Expensive novelties shown at international exhibitions in Paris (1867 and 1900) and Philadelphia (1876) attracted wealthy customers (mainly American).Read More →
His early jewellery was in neo-Greek and neo-Renaissance styles, indistinguishable from Vever, Fossin, Morel, and Mellerio.Read More →