Jewelers and Jewelry Houses of the 1960s and ‘70s

It gives me great pleasure to have been given this opportunity to introduce you to some of the fine jewels dating to the 1960s and 70s currently on show at the exhibition Simply Brilliant at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Firstly, because fine jewels, that is to say, those in precious materials and mainly one-of-a-kind designed during the 1960s and 70s, have been one of my long-standing personal interests. Secondly, because jewels of this period, up until very recently, have been vastly underrated and neglected. Therefore, the current exhibition, beautifully curated by Cynthia Amneus, Chief Curator and Curator of may be regarded a landmark exhibition as it brings back to the attention of the public at large a very interesting period of jewellery and sheds light on this particular time in jewellery history. All of this, however, would not have been possible without the passion, perseverance, and rigour that has guided Kimberley Klosterman in collecting such jewels over the last 25 years. Thanks to her fine collector's eye and relentless research, she has brought together a remarkable corpus of jewellery dating to the 1960s and 70s. She has helped shed light on forgotten designers and on the dynamics that made the innovative 1960s style go viral, as one would say today, and rapidly spread from independent artist jewellers to the established jewellery houses such as Cartier, Chaumet, Van Cleef & Appel, just to name but a few. But before I begin illustrating the principal features of 1960s and early 70s five jewels, I would like to tell you how it came about that Kimberley Klosterman began to collect 1960s and 70s jewellery and how accidentally I played a little part in the story of this unique and great collection. In 1996, I met Kimberley in London when she was a student during an intensive one-month history of jewellery course, which I used to teach at Sotheby's. At that time, I believe Kimberley was mainly interested in collecting 19th-century Austro-Hungarian Renaissance Revival jewels, pieces similar to the Saint George and Dragon Pendant you can see here. At the end of the course, I showed some of my favourite students jewels I had been acquiring. These were mainly jewels from the 1960s. The reason I collected them is that I thought the designs were striking, while most people at that time found them absolutely hideous. Hence, they were cheap and I could afford them. Kimberley always reminds me how, in my small apartment, I pulled out some of such jewels hidden behind my hot water boiler. My 60s jewels obviously made an impression on Kimberley, who immediately set off to find some for herself. In the course of her quest, she happened to meet in London Andrew Grima, one of the most influential jewellery designers in the 60s. This chance and lucky encounter converted Kimberley to become a convinced 1960s jewellery collector. For the past 25 years, she has collected, traded, upgraded her jewels, and above all done lots of research, assembling an extraordinary collection, both in terms of pieces, quality and breadth. What isn't show at the museum is just a fraction of the entire collection. As a teacher and one of the people who contributed in a way to light the spark for this passion, it gives me great satisfaction that the pupil has by far surpassed her teacher, both in quality and number of items in her collection and definitely in knowledge. What I did not know is that collecting in such rigorous and scholarly fashion is in Kimberley genes. For those of you in Cincinnati, I am sure you're aware of the extraordinary magic collection that was amassed, studied and catalogued by Kim's late father, Ken Klosterman, who during his lifetime collected over 60,000 items of magic, including books, magic props and magic memorabilia. Kim has undoubtedly followed in her paternal footsteps, creating her own kind of magic with her simply brilliant collection. During this short talk, I would like to show you some examples from the Simply Brilliant exhibition. I will attempt to illustrate some of the most salient features which will enable you to recognize and appreciate the jewels of this period. I will try to point out the distinctive motifs, characteristic materials and techniques employed by the jewelers of this time. I'm sure everyone is well aware that when one is looking at jewellery design, one cannot look at it in isolation, but as a part of the period in which it has been created. A creation of any given period is inevitably the result of the specific historical, political, economic and artistic climate, and this is particularly evident in the designs of the 1960s. The decade of the 1960s might be remembered as a period of unbridled creativity and the breaking with tradition in all spheres. The breakdown of the traditional roles of the family, breakdown of traditional courtship in favor of free sex, the decline of religion and increased lawlessness in society. In fashion, the new idea of freedom, progress and break with tradition are evident with Mary Quant's miniskirt. Never in the history of Western fashion had women worn such short and revealing garments. But needless to say, the miniskirt of 1965 became an instant worldwide success and now is regarded an icon of the decade. Characteristic of the 1960s is also the use of novel shapes and forms in the absence of traditional ornament and decoration, as well as the use of undisguised synthetic materials. In fashion, modernity was often asserted by employing modern and unusual materials such as vinyl, as you may see in this image, or unconventional metal plaques which formed Paco Rabanne's iconic male dresses of his collection of 1968. All sort of plastics became very popular. In fashion, we find PVC raincoats such as the red one by Corrèges of 1965. However, plastics were naturally not limited to fashion but played an important role also in furniture. For example, the iconic plastic injector-molded Danish panton stacking chairs of 1960s is just one of the many examples of the time. In other words, in fashion and furniture, the break with tradition is achieved often by creating daring designs with new modern materials. However, the question to address is how did jewelers who were bound by conventional materials such as gold and precious gems break with tradition? Innovation in jewelry is achieved by using traditional materials in an unconventional way. It is in the refusal to conform to tradition that jewelers of the 1960s are able to proclaim modernity, freedom, and progress. At the beginning of the 1960s, this trend was led by a number of independent artist-jewelers rather than large established jewelry firms. However, these individuals rapidly influenced more mainstream jewelry houses, and from the mid-60s onwards, these followed in suit. The break with the traditional approach to high jewelry is on all fronts, design, material, and techniques. Designs are innovative, abstract shapes are most frequent, and are made up of shapeless, dribbling, molten metal devoid of any reference to past styles. A recurring design is that of an abstract sunburst or explosion motif, which you can see in this gold, emerald, and diamond brooch, and a similar one worn by model Jean Shrimpton in 1963. For example, these designs suggesting explosions have been explained as a reflection of contemporary concerns about nuclear explosions. In some instances, nature is the starting point, and the resulting jewels are derivative, but not imitative, of nature. Most convey a vivid, organic impression, whether they suggest sprawling roots, amoebas, or algae. For example, the advancement in the discovery of the submarine world, which coincided with the post-war period, undoubtedly spurred the creation of jewels with reference to underworld creatures and plants. That nature is the starting point for numerous designs is confirmed by a Swiss jeweler, Gilbert Albert, who stated, In the same spirit, British jeweler Andrew Grima cast in gold leaves and bark from trees, or, as this case, lichens. In 1963, Princess Margaret sent Andrew Grima a piece of lichen that she had found while she and Lord Snowden were in Scotland. She was aware that Grima made castings from natural materials and asked him to transform the lichen into a brooch. Another good example of this type of jewellery by Grima is a brooch of 1970, cast from cinnamon sticks with a fire opal at the centre. In terms of material, innovation is achieved by using traditional materials in untraditional ways. For example, precious materials such as gold and diamonds are often combined in a jewel with relatively worthless material, such as a shell or even a rough stone, in what may appear a traditionally irreverent association. Emphasis is not placed on intrinsic value, but on the artistic value of a jewel. What is of importance is the colour, the texture and the shape of a gemstone, or of any other material chosen for the jewel, as one can see in the Super Shell collection by Andrew Grima of 1972. For example, Swiss jeweller Gilbert Albert created an entire collection in 1965, setting at the centre of his jewels, meteorites. The desire of creating organic jewels led jewellers to mount frequently unfaceted stones or crystal aggregates positioned as if they grew naturally out of the object. A good example in the exhibition is this topaz crystal ring by Grima, or the necklace created in Paris in 1972 by Jean Vendome. Note how the amethyst crystals appear to be growing in clusters out of the jewel, and how they have been grouped in this asymmetrical manner. The piece, however, in spite of the spiky crystals, is surprisingly comfortable to wear. The use in the history of jewellery of unfaceted crystals is not entirely a novelty. Beryl crystals can be found in ancient Roman jewellery, as you can see here in this pair of earrings, or diamond octahedra in medieval or renaissance pieces. However, in the past, crystals were selected because of their regularity, while in the 1960s it is rather their irregularity and asymmetry that is appreciated. Furthermore, most 1960s designers firmly believed that man could not improve on the raw product from nature. So the fact that the piece from nature was untampered by man, and remained in its pristine condition, was an asset and something to be In terms of technique, the approach is novel. This mainly developed from a refusal to exploit traditional methods of manufacturing jewellery. Great emphasis is placed on the roughness and texture of the gold, as opposed to the traditional smooth polish. Often, as we have seen it, it was purposely left as if the gold was just the frozen molten metal. It is always enlightening to hear what a particular jeweller has set out to achieve. Andrew Grima, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, wrote, Having entered the jewellery profession immediately after the war, and with no formal training, I had the good fortune to indulge in my own personal whims. I disliked virtually all the jewellery that was popular at the time, made of shiny gold, polished like a mirror. I set to work immediately, experimenting with all techniques available at the time, to make gold look like a material which nature might have produced. Eventually, this became the hallmark of my pieces, and still it is to this day. Grima jewels often may be recognised for their textured gold wires, such as those which compose this wonderful necklace in the exhibition. Random, although these designs may appear, they have an organic coherence which gives them a mechanical as well as an aesthetic strength. This organic coherence is also derived at times by the very methods of construction. The British jeweller David Thomas created his jewels from a tracery of gold wire, which was soldered with a micro-welder. These were far too intricate to be designed by putting pencil to paper, and Thomas simply made them up as he went along. A large-scale gold brooch that is four and a half inches wide, always by Thomas, is made of fine spiky wire scattered with diamonds, which he called hedgehog design, is a very good example of this. Apparently this piece, which is in the exhibition, was finished in haste on an airplane before Thomas consigned it to his client. Some of the new techniques in which gold was worked were often the result of haphazard trial-and-error procedures. This was probably dictated on the one hand by the conscious refusal of traditional methods, but also by ignorance. A number of influential jewellers and designers of the time began working with no formal jewellery training. A good example of the development of a trial-and-error technique is described by John Donald, another London-based jeweller. He was intrigued by the splashes of solder made by the plumber when wiping a joint in a lead pipe, and he attempted to reproduce the same effect in 18-carat gold by pouring the precious metal on his workshop floor. The result was disconcerting. Instead of spreading into a gleaming web on hitting the ground, it just burst into a myriad of tiny drops which flew into the furthest crannies of the workshop. Only a fraction of the precious metal was ever recovered. However, Donald did not surrender. He next tried pouring the molten metal into water, and the result of this, although just as unexpected, was more promising. He was left with an assortment of fascinating shapes. Most were flattish and irregular gold flakes. Some were the expected spherical shot, and others formed into a tiny cup by a pocket of steam. The cup and ball motif were used by Donald in a whole range of successful jewels, and they became a characteristic of his work. One of his trademark designs is the drum ring, which we will see in the exhibition. Donald has always favoured design over intrinsic material, and in this case, note how the diamonds just float in the centre of the drum. As a consequence of the method of manufacture and material, most jewels were one-offs, and even a pair of earrings were not identical. Contrary to the traditional precepts of symmetry and regularity, artists at this time thrived on the irregular and the asymmetrical. One can say, in fact, that there came to be a perfection in the very asymmetry of the jewel. So to summarise, one can say that jewellery of the 1960s and the early 70s is novel, for its design often abstract or organic in spirit, for its unusual materials, and for its techniques often resulting from trial and error. To begin with, I briefly touched upon the development of fashion of the early 60s, and we saw that although in high jewellery and in fashion, the desire to be modern led to the rejection of the past, this was achieved differently. In fashion, the desire to be modern led to the use of new materials such as plastics, while in high jewellery, conventional materials came to be used in an unconventional manner. This approach is similar in all other art forms where artists abound by traditional materials. Disciplines such as painting, ceramics, glassmaking and architecture, apparently unrelated, rely on traditional materials, paint and canvas, brick and mortar, and just like jewellery, they're used in an unconventional way where abstract forms and texture are the dominant features. Painters such as Lucio Fontana, for example, slashed his canvas. Ceramic artists purposely left their works rough, often marking them with a thumbprint. Artists working in glass created abstract shapes with great emphasis on texture, and architects around the world chose rough finishes for their buildings, purposely leaving the grain of the wooden planks ingrained on the cement, a feature common to many so-called brutalist buildings of the time. Even some contemporary films display an obsession for texture and abstraction as testified, for example, by numerous images in Antonioni's Eclipse of 1962. I believe it is always interesting to see how jewellery design relates to other contemporary art forms, and how often, not surprisingly, one finds parallels. As already mentioned, what is interesting to see in the current edition is how a number of independent artist-jewellers, not necessarily related in any particular way, were working in the same spirit in different countries around the world. You may see the work of Andrew Grima, who was based in London. By the 1960s, he had formulated his own clear and individual ideas about jewellery, preferring gold to platinum and unusual gem materials to conventional precious gemstones. Texture and abstraction became Grima's hallmarks. In 1966, he won a prestigious design award, the Duke of Edinburgh Prize for Elegant Design. And on this occasion, the Duke of Edinburgh purchased a gold-carved ruby and diamond brooch for the Queen. Similar to the piece is the brooch in sapphires and diamonds in the current exhibition. At first sight, they both look fairly traditional, but on closer inspection, they feature all the new hallmarks of the maker. Abstract explosion motif, the textured gold highlighted by a few diamonds. And in the case of the sapphire brooch, one finds also the characteristic juxtaposition of the rough gold to the smooth polish of the cabochon gems. As you can see, Queen Elizabeth obviously is very fond of her Grima brooch. She wore it on numerous occasions, also for the official portrait photographs to celebrate her 70th wedding anniversary with Prince Philip. Other examples in the exhibition illustrate how Grima often opted for unconventional materials. In this instance, abalone quartz nodule with tourmaline. These are large pendants suspended from a wire, which became a feature of necklaces during the 1970s. Gilbert Albert in Geneva, as mentioned earlier, was inspired by nature, but did not imitate it. In this case, he suggests an owl's head with ammonite fossil eyes. It is an ingenious bracelet brooch combination. In line with his contemporaries, he used uncut gemstones such as moldavite, which you can see in this magnificent necklace and ring. Moldavite is a rare natural glass formed millions of years ago from a meteorite that collided with our planet in Moldavia, hence the name moldavite. On the other side of the Atlantic, there were other designers working in a similar style. In New York, there was Arthur King, who taught himself goldsmithing while engaged in the US Mercantile Navy during the war. His duties as an overseer of an empty and unused troop ship made him yearn to do something useful with his hands, and he started experimenting with metal jewellery. At the end of the war, he turned to his new craft. All his jewels are set with colourful and unusual materials, often pearls. King's jewels are very organic in appearance, with gold reminiscent of tendrils and sprawling roots. Cast by means of the lost-wax technique, no piece is ever identical as he destroyed the casts. The gold work is also characteristically frequently left unpolished and textured. A wonderful example of textured sea creature is provided by his ivory and gold octopus bracelet watch, while the large ring with its typical organic tendrils was designed to be worn on two fingers, a type of ring that became quite fashionable during this period. At the beginning of this talk, I mentioned how Kimberley Klosterman is a serious and dedicated collector, and how she devotes time in researching her pieces and furthering her knowledge. The provenance of this Arthur King brooch was one of her recent discoveries. She found it pictured and listed in an auction held in 1988 for an estimate of US$1,500, but this will not mean much. What she discovered was her brooch had formerly been part of the collection of Andy Warhol, the famous pop art artist who was also a keen jewellery collector. What a great provenance for a jewel. Besides King in New York, there was also Barbara Anton, who had set out to be an actress, but turned to jewellery design, creating often large gold and pearl statement pieces, such as this magnificent necklace, characterised once again by a random arrangement of pearls, rough gold tendrils and dots of diamond sparkles. Note also the reverse with its signature, how beautifully it is crafted. Among the numerous artists featured in this exhibition, you will find also the works of Canadian designer Roger Lucas, who made a name for himself designing large-scale pieces such as this golden diamond bracelet. What is interesting to note is that his work was exhibited and retailed at the end of the 1960s by Cartier New York. The article featuring Lucas' ring described it as brass knuckles made of precious metal with gems. The knuckles are actually a ring to wear on the second finger, which sends jewels to span other fingers on the hand. There is also a balancing bar to clutch in the palm of the hand. The jewels inspired by underwater motifs are meant to be miniature pieces of sculpture to admire when they're not being worn. This is what is written in the article that you see featured here. This illustrates how many of the major jewellery houses, in a quest to appeal to a younger and more modern clientele, began to embrace the new 60s style, either by exhibiting and retailing the works of independent artist jewellers such as Lucas, or creating in the jewels in the same spirit. There are numerous examples to choose from in the exhibition. Pierre Sterlet, an established Parisian jeweller, whose jewels of the 1950s are a quintessential representation of the trends of that decade, in the 60s embraced wholeheartedly the new idiom, creating abstract and asymmetrical jewels made of flaming gold motifs described as ores sauvages, or wild gold. Chaumet, one of the oldest Parisian houses established in 1780, crown jeweller also to Napoleon I, in the mid-1960s adopted to the new look, as we can see here in these earrings formed of unfaceted amethyst and rough textured branches. The same can be said of the gold-like nugget mounted on elephant hair, forming a bracelet created by Van Cleef & Arpels in 1972. Some jewellers who continue to rely on materials of high intrinsic value were nonetheless clearly influenced by the new idiom. Their pieces, though dominated by diamonds and mounted in white metal rather than gold, take on a new form. Designs tend to be abstract and not representational, at times presenting the typical explosion theme. Though texturing the metal is not a feature of these diamond-set jewels, their jagged contours contribute to convey a roughness to the overall design, as you can see in these two brooches. For example, note the asymmetrical positioning of the large pink concite in the example by Swiss jeweller Gublin, which is so typical of the innovative trend. In conclusion, I hope I've been able to give you an idea of the breadth of the Simply Brilliant exhibition, and I hope you will have the time to visit the exhibition at the Cincinnati Museum of Art and be captivated by these remarkable, precious works of art. Thank you.