Modern Cuff

From the 1940s to the 1970s, Art Smith was a leading member of the studio jewelry movement in New York City, which included Ed Wiener and Sam Kramer, both of whom are represented in The Met’s collections. Smith studied two and three dimensional art at Cooper Union. During his last two years at the school, he held a part time job at the Children’s Aid Society in Harlem, where he was introduced to jewelry making as an art form. Smith was an openly gay, Black artist whose designs were influenced by Surrealism, Primitivism, and the work of Alexander Calder, as well as by jazz, traditional tribal jewelry, and African sculpture.
Like many of Smith’s biomorphic and sculptural designs, this cuff creates an interplay between the jewelry and the wearer; the negative spaces make the wearer’s skin part of the design. Smith’s use of semi-precious metals and simple techniques gives each of his pieces a hand-crafted quality. The brass rods here reflect Smith’s interest in jazz, as the flattened ends recall the brass keys of a saxophone or trumpet.