Jewelry of Ideas The Susan Grant Lewin Collection

by Baumann, Caroline; Lewin, Susan Grant; Ilse-Neuman, Ursula

• ISBN13: 9783897905122
• ISBN10: 3897905124
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2018-03-21
• Publisher: Arnoldsche Verlagsanstalt

Summary

•Superb contemporary art jewelry from the past two decades from the Susan Grant Lewin Collection, on view at Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, New York

•Includes around 150 outstanding pieces by 102 jewelry artists from the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia, mainly from the past 15 years

•Radical developments in jewelry from across the world, from traditional metalsmithing to computer-aided design

•Featuring avant-garde works showcasing the limitless potential of jewelry design

The consummate Susan Grant Lewin Collection - recently donated to Cooper Hewitt - captures the diversity and achievements of contemporary art jewelry with nearly 150 significant works from the last 15 years by designers from the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia.

The brooches, necklaces and rings reveal how these contemporary jewelers have revolutionized the medium in transforming jewelry conventions in expressions of our time. Descriptions of specific works demonstrate that while the mastery of materials and techniques is critical to the creative process, it is not an end in itself, but only the means to accomplish an aesthetic vision. Process statements from each designer and a full gallery of the jewelry accompany the narrative sequence of extraordinary, stirring, unique pieces.

Contents: Foreword by Caroline Baumann; Collector's Statement by Susan Grant Lewin; Collecting and Wearing by Ursula Ilse-Neuman; Born of Ideas: The Susan Grant Lewin Collection by Ursula Ilse-Neuman; Gallery of Jewellery (Pioneering Jewellers, Content-Driven Jewellery, Abstract Forms, Conceptual Jewellery); Index of Works and Jewellers' Statements by Thomas Gentille; Acknowledgements; Biographies.

Published to accompany the Exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York (US), 17 November 2017-28 May 2018.

Author Biography

Ursula-Ilse Neuman is an independent curator, author and lecturer specialising in contemporary art jewelry. She is former curator of the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (1992-2014). Author of Linda MacNeil. Jewels of Glass (ISBN 9783897904712). With over 20 years as a journalist, Susan Grant Lewin cut her design teeth as Design Editor of Home Furnishings Daily and then as Senior Editor of Design and Architecture at House Beautiful Magazine. She then segued seamlessly into her position as Global Creative Director of Formica Corporation. Her strategy to reposition the 75-year-old company was to commission new works utilizing the talents of the leading designers of the time. Lewin curated several exhibitions. Two of the winners of the "Surface and Ornament" competition initiated by Lewin were jewelers Bob Ebendorf and Ivy Ross. They charted the course of Lewin's interest in American jewelry. Today Lewin is director of her own public relations firm.