Unique by Design: Contemporary Jewelry in the Donna Schneier Collection

Ramljak, Suzanne (2014)

This title is out of print.

Publication Details

Description

The collection of post-World War II jewelry assembled by Donna Schneier chronicles the history of modern and contemporary jewelry worldwide. Her gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art of 132 necklaces, bracelets, brooches, earrings, and rings created by 88 makers embodies an era in which artists and craftspeople experimented with new materials, techniques and concepts.

The artists represented in the Donna Schneier Collection conceived their works within larger artistic movements, signaling a period in which concepts and ideas were valued more than precious materials. They were inspired by important turn-of-the-twentieth-century jewelers such as René Lalique and Louis Comfort Tiffany, but also looked to artists like Alexander Calder—who began making jewelry in the 1930s—and midcentury modernists like Art Smith and Sam Kramer. Abstraction, Conceptual art, and Minimalism were all powerful influences, along with earlier modernist movements such as the Bauhaus and De Stijl. Performance art, Pop art, and a keen interest in narrative and figurative work also came into play.

Table of contents

Director's Foreword

Introduction

Seductive Tactics:
Contemporary Jewelry in the Donna Schneier Collection

Plates

List of Works

Selected Readings

Press reviews

Ornament

"...give(s) an exacting overview of the development of contemporary jewelry... in addition to the gorgeous gallery..."

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Modern and Contemporary Art

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Related Content

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (9)

Timelines (9)

Arabian Peninsula and the Eastern Mediterranean, 1900 A.D.–present

Central Europe (Austria, Germany, and Switzerland) 1900 A.D.–present

Central Europe (not Austria, Germany, and Switzerland), 1900 A.D.–present

France, 1900 A.D.–present

Great Britain and Ireland, 1900 A.D.–present

Italian Peninsula, 1900 A.D.–present

Korea, 1900 A.D.–present

Low Countries, 1900 A.D.–present

The United States and Canada, 1900 A.D.–present

Exhibition

Unique by Design: Contemporary Jewelry in the Donna Schneier Collection

This exhibition provides a close look at more than eighty pieces that came to The Metropolitan Museum of Art through a significant 2007 gift from collector Donna Schneier. The pieces—designed by some eighty-eight artists from seventeen countries—date from the 1960s to the present and include the work of modern master jewelers such as Thomas Gentille, William Harper, Mary Lee Hu, Hermann Junger, Gijs Bakker, and Peter Chang, as well as avant-garde jewelry makers Robert Baines, Ted Noten, and Lola Brooks, all of whom have contributed to the creative revolution in contemporary jewelry design.

Plan Ahead

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