Los Angeles - On October 12, Bonhams Los Angeles will present Wearable Art: Jewels from The Crawford Collection featuring more than 300 pieces of wearable sculpture representing a cross-section of important and beautiful twentieth-century artist jewelry from more than 30 master makers including Pablo Picasso, Charles Loloma, Art Smith, Betty Cooke, William Spratling and many more.

These rare jewels were collected across the world over a lifetime by private collectors Byron and Jill Crawford who bought pieces they loved and assembled an array of highly sought after, museum-quality works, many of which have been featured in important books and exhibitions. The categories offered include jewelry by fine artists (Picasso, Max Ernst, Jean Arp), American Modernist jewelry (Art Smith, Betty Cooke, Sam Kramer), Scandinavian jewelry (Georg Jensen, Björn Weckström), Native American jewelry (Charles Loloma, Jesse Monongya), and Taxco jewelry (William Spratling, Antonio Pineda). Individually, this auction contains one of the largest private collections of Charles Loloma, Art Smith, Betty Cooke, William Spratling, and Margaret De Patta to be presented at auction.

Collector Jill Crawford said, "It has been my great passion and pleasure to own and wear the jewelry in my collection. I have spent a lifetime searching for the greatest examples by artists I admire. When I am wearing a great piece of jewelry, I feel connected to the artist, and I become part of the story a piece is telling. Jewelry is meant to be worn, and in the hands of a passionate collector it becomes transcendent."

Head of Jewelry, Bonhams Los Angeles, Emily Waterfall said, "Working with The Crawford Collection has been a dream. These are some of the finest individual examples of jewelry work by Loloma, Spratling, Picasso, Betty Cooke, and others to ever come to auction. Taken individually they are exquisite and viewing the collection as a whole is a stunning look at one of the best private collections of artist jewelry in the world."

The catalogue includes essays by jewelry world luminaries Toni Greenbaum, Jeannine Falino, Levi Higgs, Lois Sherr Dubin, and others.

Highlights of the collection include several works by modern artists Pablo Picasso, and Max Ernst, surrealist artists who changed the face of art. These high karat works created by Atelier Hugo in the 1970s are exceedingly rare, with only a few hundred ever made. Picasso's Grand Faune is iconic and matches lithographs made by the artist. While recognized most frequently for painting, Picasso explored jewelry throughout his life, alongside ceramics and sculpture. Ernst, the prolific German avant-garde artist had a fascination with birds seen throughout his work and in a pendant in the sale. He claims his pet bird died the moment his sister was born and the bird-like creatures in one pendant in the collection represent a supernatural journey. The piece is dramatic, abstract, and arrests the attention. The biomorphic forms of Jean Arp also translate into wonderful and playful necklaces.

Midcentury American Studio jewelry is represented by more than twenty pieces of Art Smith, as well as significant examples from Margaret De Patta, Betty Cooke, and Sam Kramer. American studio jewelers sought to create works that were handmade and economical—to be accessible to anyone who wanted to buy and wear a piece. All of these artists are featured in multiple museum collections, exhibitions, and books, and a retrospective called Betty Cooke: The Circle and the Line is currently at the Walters Art Museum through January.

The jewelry of Art Smith is particularly sought after. He was an Afro-Cuban immigrant who championed both African American and gay rights and created jewelry for everyone, often giving pieces away to clients and friends. Often made in base metals, such as brass or copper, his transformative designs based on modern dance and jazz, were featured in Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. Smith sold his jewelry from a shop in Greenwich Village from 1946 until 1979. Since the early 2000s, museums around the world have avidly collected examples of his work, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Newark Museum; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. The exhibition From the Village to Vogue: The Modernist Jewelry of Art Smith at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2008 helped renew interest in this important artist.

Considered the father of Taxco jewelry and active at the same time as Smith, William Spratling was hugely influential in establishing Taxco as a center for bold, high quality silver designs, such as the starburst necklace he called the "Collar Rubenstein" after Helena Rubenstein, the cosmetics mogul who he originally designed the model for. Rubinstein wrote in her autobiography, "Although I no longer need the added courage that handsome jewelry once gave me (it was not easy being a hard-working woman in a man's world many years ago), I am aware that the wearing of exotic jewelry has become... a mark of my identity." Another version of the necklace is in the LACMA.

Scandinavian designer Björn Weckström is known for his massive jewelry with seemingly rough-cut surfaces and asymmetrical forms. While the elements are deceptively casual, almost accidental, the resulting pieces are finely finished, striking works.

Native American jewelry is strongly represented by Charles Loloma, Jesse Monongya, and others. The colorful hardstone constructions favored by Native American midcentury and contemporary jewelers have risen in popularity. The work of Loloma in particular, is wonderfully constructed, colorful, reflects the colors of the landscapes and is frequently seen in important museum and private collections. His pieces were used as state gifts by Lyndon B. Johnson and were collected by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Other artists include Georg Jensen, Elsa Peretti for Tiffany, Bruni Martinazzi, Pol Bury, Ettore Sottsass, Tod Pardon, Arnaldo and Giò Pomodoro, and Edvil Ramosa for GEM Montbello, and others.

23 September 2021