Sotheby’s Is Hosting Its First Auction and Exhibition Dedicated to Artist-Designed Jewelry

This weekend, Sotheby’s is established to open Artwork as Jewelry as Artwork, a very first-of-its-variety online auction and exhibition in New York (September 24–October 4, 2022) that includes jewelry built by 65 main artists of the 20th century and nowadays. From gilded, birdlike Georges Braque brooches encouraged by Greek mythology to Louise Nevelson’s sculptural pendants to a pair of 18-karat gold Salvador Dalí earrings in the type of melting telephones—and dripping with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies—the parts are at once adornment and art.

“These functions had been not designed to be squirreled absent in a drawer, self-importance, or safe and sound,” said Tiffany Dubin, the artist jewellery professional and head of sale for Artwork as Jewelry as Artwork, in a assertion. “They had been intended to be celebrated on the physique in a vivid, interactive manner.”

Alexander Calder's experimentation with sculptural forms included jewelry, such as this brass <i>Lady Kenneth Clark Tiara</i> (ca. 1937–1938). Courtesy of Sotheby's.

Alexander Calder’s experimentation with sculptural sorts involved jewelry, such as this brass tiara for Lady Kenneth Clark (ca. 1937–1938). Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

The auction, she included, “aims to reintroduce these works as a described classification of art.” By the way, some of the involved performs have been exhibited in establishments these kinds of as New York’s Cooper Hewitt Museum and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.

“I see this sale evolving into a section identified as ‘Art to Wear’,” Dubin explained to Artnet News. She is preparing an American Modernism auction for subsequent 12 months, with a concentrate on studio jewelry, as effectively as an haute couture runway jewellery sale for 2024.

The mouth was a recurring motif in the work of sculptor Claude Lalanne; she molded those of friends and clients for Surrealist pieces like <i>Claude Lalanne for Zolotas Silver Necklace</i> (1975), which is believed to feature the lips of Yves Saint Laurent. Courtesy of Sotheby's.

The mouth was a recurring motif in the function of sculptor Claude Lalanne she molded these of pals and customers for Surrealist items like this silver necklace for Zolotas (1975), which is thought to function the lips of Yves Saint Laurent. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

“The works are miniature sculptures,” Dubin claimed. “Acquiring 1 of them lets the customer to practical experience an intimate relationship with the piece itself, the artist who developed it, as effectively as a immediate relationship to the art movement it demonstrates.”

Sourced from a array of private collections and estates, Artwork as Jewellery as Artwork will be introduced in nine chapters focused distinctive artwork kinds (such as sculpture) and movements (Kineticism, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism).

You will also uncover items specially commissioned from contemporary practitioners for the sale, such as a rhombicuboctahedron-formed jewellery box that Katia Luna Benaï carved from wooden with classic Amazigh symbols and an 18-karat gold pendant of kissing angels sculpted by Tom Otterness. Meanwhile, Francine Ballard, the founder the world-wide-web3 emporium Metagolden, produced a gold-and-emerald ring that resembles a geodesic dome, to be offered with a “digital twin” NFT.

Venezulan artist Jesús Rafael Soto designed these silver <i>Penetrable</i> earrings (1968) with silver-gilt moving rods, just as he was creating his large-scale pieces of the same name. Courtesy of Sotheby's.

Venezulan artist Jesús Rafael Soto built these silver Penetrable earrings (1968) with silver-gilt transferring rods, just as he was developing his substantial-scale parts of the very same identify. Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

“The performs below signify historical moments of resourceful expression from Calder’s kinetic genius in the 1930s and 1940s to today’s visionaries, who are making with their art what I look at as the heirlooms not just of these days, but of tomorrow,” Dubin reported.

At present in a digital-only preview, the auction will open for online bidding September 23, with the jewelry simultaneously on community watch at Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries. Hammer rates are believed to array from below $1,000 to up to $300,000. The maximum estimate is for a circa-1942 silver and fabric necklace by Calder a identical piece was provided in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2008­–2009 “Calder Jewelry” exhibition.

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