Cello Bracelet

Composed of broad swaths of silver surrounded by hammered wire in a deconstructed evocation of a cello, this bracelet cuff was made by the modernist jeweler Ed Wiener. Wiener’s career started in the 1940s in the bohemian hot bed of Greenwich Village, where he produced hand-hammered silver jewelry alongside other artists such as Sam Kramer and Art Smith. Although his early jewelry found formal inspiration in Alexander Calder, as he progressed, Wiener evolved his own vocabulary, often shaped by his interest in adopting new materials and techniques in casting, setting, and joining. This bracelet is part of a collection of twelve pieces donated by Wiener’s daughter which show the development his own language of modernist forms.