Gallery Loupe have just published Thomas Gentille: Twenty-First Century, a stand-alone catalog featuring the work of this senior American contemporary jeweler. The publication is 120 pages, and features essays by Ursula Ilse-Neuman, Toni Greenbaum and Vanessa S. Lynn, a foreword by Gentille, and over 50 actual size color reproductions of his jewelry. You can order copies through the Gallery Loupe website by clicking here.
Sigrid van Roode, a scholar of Middle Eastern jewelry who writes for Adornment magazine, has started a new website called Bedouin Silver, which provides information on traditional, nomadic and Bedouin adornment from the Middle East and North Africa. If you are interested in what's often called Ethnic or Tribal jewelry, then this site will provide information on the meanings and functions of adornment in this part of the world. To visit the website, click here .
Wichita Art Museum is currently showing The Art of Adornment: Artists Embellish the Body, an exhibition of fifteen Kansas artists who work with, on and about the human body. The show includes work by Marjorie Schick, and modernist jewelry by Mary Kretsinger and Mary Koch. You can visit the museum website by clicking here, and read an article about the exhibition by clicking here.
A conference called Gold: Substance, Symbol, and Significance will being held in New York on 7 - 9 April 2011. According to the organizers, 'This conference takes an all-embracing look at this precious metal, considering it in all its physical manifestations - from mineral ingot, to coinage, to jewelry - and at all stages of its production and use.' One of the themes of the event will be contemporary work in gold, from both contemporary and conventional jewelers. To register, please click here.
The Boston Globe has reviewed Atelier Janiy� and the Legacy of Miy� Matsukata, an exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum that received publication funding from AJF. You can read the review by clicking here.
You can read an interview with Nora Atkinson, the curator of the exhibition Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard, on the Houston Centre for Contemporary Craft blog, by clicking here. You can also read AJF's review of the exhibition, first shown at Bellevue Arts Museum, by clicking here.
Check out what Debbie Kuo, an administrator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, has to say about her favorite jewelry in the collection by clicking here.
A Bit of Clay on the Skin: New Ceramic Jewelry will be on view at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York City, from the 15 March to 4 September 2011. To visit the museum website, click here .
Lindsay Pollack, AJF member and contributor to our blog, has been named Editor-in-Chief of Art in America magazine. Congratulations, Lindsay! (To read about her appointment,
click here.)
The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York is currently showing an exhibition called
Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels. To visit the museum website,
click here, and to read an interview in Wallpaper* magazine with the exhibition designer,
click here.
Sotheby's is going to be auctioning the collection of Mark McDonald, a dealer of twentieth century design who played a key role in building the market for modernist furniture, ceramics, glass and jewelry. The auction, which you can find out more about by
clicking here, will take place on 10 March 2011. You can also read a New York Times article about the auction by
clicking here.
The Sunday Times newspaper in South Africa broaches the subject of the brooch, in
this article about the communicative potential of jewelry's least body-related form.
In 2007 French jeweler Philip Sajet received the Marzee Prize, which has enabled him to produce a publication of his work. You can find out more about this book, and the accompanying exhibition, by visiting the website of
CODA in the Netherlands. (It also helps if you speak Dutch.)
AJF member Susan Beech is profiled in the latest issue of Metalsmith magazine, in an article by Mija Riedel. (See 'Susan Beech: Driving force',
Metalsmith v.31, n.1, 2011, pp.22-25.) Unsurprisingly for those who know her, Beech's collection is described as 'a body of jewelry that exudes curiosity, theatricality, sexuality, and an irreverent sense of humor.'