Boston Made: Arts And Crafts Jewelry And Metalwork

So little wonder that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is mounting "Boston Made: Arts and Crafts Jewelry and Metalwork" from November 17 through March 29, 2020 This tribute to the interconnected spheres of Arts and Crafts jewelry making and fine metalsmithing is co-curated by Nonie Gadsden, the Katharine Lane Weems Senior Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture of the Americas; Meghan Melvin, the Jean S and Frederic A.

Sharf Curator of Design, a curator in the department of prints and drawings; and Emily Stoehrer, the Rita J Kaplan and Susan B Kaplan Curator of Jewelry.

The co-curators have mounted the first exhibition solely devoted to Boston-area Arts and Crafts jewelry and art objects of fine metals They made sure to include objects rarely, if ever, exhibited as well as better known exemplars of "The Boston Look." The co-curators want visitors to understand that jewelry making and fine metalworking were amalgamated pursuits within the Arts and Crafts genre, a view unquestioned at the turn of the Twentieth Century, but one that changed as curators and collectors came to assign jewelry and metals to separate categories The strong artistic and cultural chord tying Boston to England can be seen in objects produced by art metalsmiths who had trained in the national birthplace of the Arts and Crafts movement or who had studied with those who had.

Intimately familiar with Anglo-style Arts and Crafts jewelry and metalworking of the highest order, these makers devised kindred custom items for artistic elites Stressing the significance of Boston as the leader in American Arts and Crafts jewelry design at the time, Gadsden followed that the premier position of this city, long considered a bastion of conservatism in design, surprised commentators even back then The use of colorful gemstones is considered a defining attribute of "The Boston Look" in Arts and Crafts jewelry. Source