Books December 2003/January 2004
Verdura: The Life and Work of a Master Jeweler
Viennese Silver: Modern Design 1780-1918
Illy Collection: A Decade of Artist Cups by Illycaffè
Art
Deco 1910-1939
edited by Charlotte Benton, Tim Benton and Ghislaine Wood, 2003, Bulfinch
Press, New York, NY, 800-759-0190. 464 pages, 32 contributors, illustrated.
$65.
In sumptuousness and variety this scholarly book echoes its subject: the Art Deco style that swept the world during the years between the two World Wars and defined the look of that period in architecture, fashion and jewelry, home and industrial design, films, photography and forms of transportation, leaving its mark on luxury and popular goods alike. As editors/scholars Charlotte Benton and Tim Benton point out in their introduction, “Art Deco’s very eclecticism has been part of its compelling charm and attraction.” The 40 essays touch on the style’s many sources - Egyptomania, archaic sculpture, ancient Mexico, African and Asian art, and avant-garde art - and forms of expression. Art Deco in Europe and America is likely to be familiar, but it is unexpected and informative to see its manifestation in India, East Asia, South Africa and Latin America. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, organized the companion exhibition, now at the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (through January 4), and later touring to San Francisco and Boston.
Verdura:
The Life and Work of a Master Jeweler
by Patricia Corbett, 2002, Harry N. Abrams, New York, NY, 800-345-1359.
224 pages, introduction by Amy Fine Collins, illustrated. $55.
Born a Sicilian aristocrat, Fulco di Verdura (1898-1978) left Palermo for Paris in the 1920s as an aspiring painter. But he found his vocation designing jewelry known for its flamboyance and refinement, and its use of enamel and semiprecious stones, at first for the clients of Coco Chanel’s fashion house. From the beginning he designed for the beau monde - Cole Porter and his wife, and later Greta Garbo, Diana Vreeland, and the like. With the backing of Porter, Verdura opened a business in New York City, which he ran until he retired in 1973. His neo-Baroque style stands in contrast to the geometry and hard edges of much Art Deco jewelry. In addition to dramatic photos of the jewels, and many of Verdura’s fine drawings of the pieces, this lively monograph provides vintages photos of the jeweler and of the famous folk who wore his creations.
The
Master Jewelers
edited by A. Kenneth Snowman, 2002 (originally 1990), Thames &
Hudson, New York, NY. W. W. Norton, New York, NY, 800-233-4830. 262 pages,
16 contributors, illustrated. $29.95 paperback.
This survey succinctly profiles 15 exemplary fine jewelers of the Western world from 1850, when such artist-craftsmen began to emerge from anonymity, to the present. The opulent, individually distinctive confections by Castellani and Giuliano, Fontenay, Hancock, Falize, Boucheron, Faberge, Tillander, Lalique, Vever, Fouquet, Tiffany, Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels, Verdura and Bulgari are presented along with archival images. Specialists in the field touch on the social, aesthetic and business aspects of each firm.
Viennese
Silver: Modern Design 1780-1918
edited by Michael Huey, 2003, Neue Galerie Museum for German and Austrian
Art, New York, NY, and Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Austria. Hatje
Cantz Publishers, Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany. D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers,
New York, NY, 800-338-2665. 400 pages, eight contributors, illustrated.
$60.
The title should startle. One doesn’t ordinarily think of modernism as having roots in the late 18th and early 19th century, but that is precisely the argument of this book presenting 180 masterworks of Viennese silver from the Neoclassical period (also called Biedermeier) to the Wiener Werkstätte in the early 20th century. With their straightforward lines, use of geometry and minimal ornamentation, the candlesticks, water jugs, tea and coffee pots, hairbrushes, cutlery and other everyday early 19th-century objects presented here were clearly the inspiration for the designs Josef Hoffman and Koloman Moser created for the Wiener Werkstätte, so influential in later movements such as the Bauhaus and De Stijl. The book accompanies an exhibit at the Neue Galerie (through February 15) that will travel to the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna (November 11-March 13, 2005).
Koru
1
2003, South Carelia Polytechnic, Lappeenranta, Finland, Fax +358 2049
66900, e-mail: ismo.vainikka@scp.fi. 42 pages, introduction by Antonio
Altarriba and Eija Mustonen, illustrated. $14.45 paperback.
A young generation of European jewelry makers was the focus of “Koru 1,” an international event featuring an exhibition, workshops and seminars, held in June 2003 at the South Karelia Museum and other venues in Lappeenranta, Finland. Twelve artists, including four from Finland, were invited to exhibit and to choose two additional exhibitors—emerging artists—from their country. The work of seven artists who had graduated from the Lappeenranta School of Jewellery was also presented. All told, 43 artists from 11 countries participated, and their work, much of it nontraditional, is illustrated in this catalog.
The
Fabric of Moroccan Life
edited by Niloo Imami Paydar and Ivo Grammet, 2002, Indianapolis Museum
of Art, IN. University of Washington Press, Seattle, 800-441-4115. 304
pages, 14 contributors, illustrated. $45.
The culture of Morocco is noted for the beauty and diversity of the textiles produced there over the centuries, particularly embroidered cloth for furnishings and costume, but also pile and flatweave rugs, and painted and resist-dyed fabric. The approximately 150 pieces illustrated in this survey are drawn from the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, which has one of the most comprehensive assemblage of Moroccan rugs and textiles in the United States. In addition to textile analysis, the essays, by 14 scholars from different fields, offer a wealth of information on the significance of these fabrics to the groups that produced them. The book documents an exhibition shown at the Indianapolis Museum in 2002 and in 2003 at Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art.
Illy
Collection: A Decade of Artist Cups by Illycaffè
2002, Edizioni Charta, Milan, Italy. D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers,
New York, NY, 800-338-2665. 216 pages, text in English and Italian, illustrated.
$50.
To celebrate the daily rite of coffee drinking, illycaffè, the Trieste-based coffee roasters, in 1990 commissioned the architect and engineer Matteo Thun to design the simple porcelain espresso cup and saucer that would become the company icon. Since 1992, illycaffè has commissioned limited-edition designs to be imprinted on that “porcelain canvas” from 62 well-known and emerging artists, photographers and filmmakers.The artists and their designs are pictured in this vivid catalog of the collection.
Tea,
Anyone? The Donna Moog Teapot Collection
by Glenn Adamson and Davira S. Taragin, 2003, Racine Art Museum, WI,
262-638-8200. 88 pages, foreword by Bruce W. Pepich, illustrated. $24.95
paperback.
Works by Beatrice Wood, Adrian Saxe, Karen Karnes, Akio Takamori and Tony Hepburn are among the 126 contemporary ceramic teapots in this catalog, all drawn from the 250-piece collection donated by the St. Louis collector Donna Moog to the new Racine Art Museum and now on view there (through January 18). Glenn Adamson’s philosophical essay explores the fundamental allure of the teapot form as it pertains to the artists represented here. Davira S. Taragin prompts Moog to reminisce about collecting in the 1980s and 90s.
John
Hoover: Art and Life
by Julie Decker, 2002, Anchorage Museum of History and Art and Anchorage
Museum Association, AK. University of Washington Press, Seattle, 800-441-4115.
184 pages, illustrated. $50.
Born in Alaska in 1919 of European and Aleut parentage and now living in Washington State, John Hoover is known for his small- and large-scale sculptures, carved primarily in cedar with applied color, inspired by the ancient legends of Native American cultures in Alaska and on the Northwest Coast. Julie Decker, an independent curator, surveys Hoover’s life, influences and artistic accomplishments in this catalog for an exhibition she helped organize, which opened at the Anchorage Museum of History and Art in 2002 and is at the Heard Museum, Phoenix (through January 18).
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