Art jewelry
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.
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.
[5] In the 1960s, art jewelers began to introduce new, alternative materials into their work, such as aluminium and acrylics, breaking with the historical role of jewelry as a sign of status and economic value or portable wealth.
Based on a combination of historical references, reactions to regional and world events, newly available materials and other factors, art jewelry reflected a country's identity while at the same time being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.
"[8] 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.
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.
[9] 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.
Base metals, semi-precious stones like opals, moonstones and turquoise, misshapen pearls, glass and shell, and the plentiful use of Vitreous enamel, allowed jewelers to be creative and to produce affordable objects.
[12] 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.
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 fear of the bomb, the politics of prejudice, the sterility of industrialization, and the crassness of commercialism.
"[17] 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[18] and Henry Steig in midtown Manhattan) and the Bay Area on the West Coast (Margaret De Patta, Peter Macchiarini, Merry Renk, Irena Brynner, Francis Sperisen and Bob Winston).
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.
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 at the New Bauhaus in Chicago.
[23] Toni Greenbaum writes that "After his mentor, the painter John Haley, showed him work by Matisse and Picasso, Bob Winston exclaimed: 'That's the kind of crap I'm doing!'.
[25] 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.
[26][clarification needed] 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.
