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Gold and Silver Jewellery: The Transformation
of a Tradition in the Twentieth Century The exhibition in the Blue Bedroom of the Winter Palace has been organized jointly by the State Hermitage and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (Canada). The exhibition presents more than 100 items of jewellery from the collection of the Montreal museum. At the core of the exhibition are pieces from a number of private collections, including modern works from Lilian and David Stewart, some created between 1945 and the present day. Works of jewellery are often synonymous with elegance and luxury, and they are part of our lives. Certain types of works have remained practically unchanged over the course of history, though the headlong development of the Avant Garde facilitated the emergence of innovative works that are noted for their formal effects, techniques applied in their creation and use of unusual materials. The exhibition tells us about the development of artistic jewellery over the course of a hundred years. The show opens with works by jewellers from the early 20th century in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles. Among those especially worth mentioning are the renowned master Rene Lalique, who combined gold, precious stones and enamel in his works. Salient decorative inserts made from enamel take the place of precious stones, as we can see in the pendant in the form of a woman's head with long hair adorned with leaves and fruits. From the 1950s onwards, jewelers in the USA and Scandinavia take prominent positions in the craft. American masters create works under the influence of Primitivism, Surrealism and Constructivism, showing a marked preference for silver and semiprecious stones, as well as for the most fanciful and unusual materials. Thus, for example, Sam Kramer uses a glass eye set in silver to create his bracelet. Works by painters and sculptors constitute a special section of the exhibition. In the history of artistic jewellery, we frequently find one of a kind works by the masters. At the behest of a Finnish industrialist, Salvador Dali created a series of Surrealistic decorative pieces making use of gold and precious stones. Produced in a limited edition, these works reproduce images from his paintings, including the molten clock hanging from a tree - a symbol of a fantastic world existing beyond time. Pablo Picasso designed decorative pieces which were then created by the workshop of Francois Hugo. The artist was especially attracted to mythological subjects (with centaurs and bulls), using a relief treatment that is reminiscent of the depictions on Ancient coins. He was also drawn to motifs such as masks and women's faces, which may be seen in his sketches for brooches and pendants of asymmetrical shapes. Meanwhile sculptors created unique, entirely self-standing jewellery items which are by no means diminutive copies of their monumental works. As an example of this, we may cite the bracelet by the Italian sculptor Bruno Martinazzi, his Gold Finger in the form of a hand, symbolizing the act of creation and an expression of friendly feelings. Modern art jewellery avoids backward glances at the past and follows the creative imagination of the jewellery masters. The exhibition displays works created in the final decades of the century by the jewellers Friedrich Becker, Paul Lobel, Bill Reid and Ted Noten, among others. The techniques applied became more and more varied, as did both the shapes and the materials used: the artists created their works from plastic, paper and fabrics. The Canadian jeweller Barbara Statman made interesting experiments with fishing line, magnetic tape and iron rods. She used such techniques as weaving and knitting. The subjects of her works vary from environmental problems to politics and Feminism. A scholarly illustrated catalogue of the exhibition has been prepared and published by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The curator of the exhibition is Deputy Director of the State Hermitage's Department of History of Western European Applied Art Olga Kostiuk. |
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