Hurry to See This Small however Spectacular Present

The Jewellery of Dorothea Prühl
September 6, 2025–January 3, 2027
The Museum of High quality Arts, Houston, Houston, TX, US

Dorothea Prühl is without doubt one of the nice jewellery artists of our day. And thru January 3, 2027, the Museum of High quality Arts, Houston, is that includes Prühl’s work in a small however spectacular present.

A lot of the roughly two dozen works on view are necklaces. The bulk are promised presents from the Rotasa Assortment Belief. The works had been revamped virtually 5 a long time, from 1976 to 2025, with extra having been made in recent times.

Prühl works in wooden and metals, carving and forming the supplies into largely summary shapes. Lots of the items recommend birds in flight, or flowers, though there’s additionally a beautiful necklace of frogs that can make you smile.

Jewellery is a tactile artwork, and when the work is enclosed in a glass case, the interaction between wearer and object is altered. Thoughtfully, the museum employees thought of this. So for every bit, there may be an digital description and, within the case of the necklaces, there’s additionally a brief video of every work being held, and the sounds every makes because it strikes.

In her metallic items, Prühl makes use of some mixture of aluminum, silver, gold, titanium, iron, and stainless-steel. Every necklace sounds barely totally different, relying on the supplies, with low to excessive pitches, and with roughly reverberation. Some carry to minds flutes. One other sounds extra like a cowbell. Prühl has used cherrywood, alder, and elm in her wood works, however in recent times, has used extra alder wooden (which apparently is each steady and straightforward to carve). Once more, totally different woods make totally different sounds as the weather of the necklaces work together with one another.

Along with the sounds of the jewellery, the show permits viewers to be comparatively near the items, the higher to see every. With the wood items, you stand shut sufficient to see the marks Prühl’s instruments left on the wooden. This tactile nature is a part of the enchantment of the wood items; I needed to run my fingers over the entire wood components. Typically, her wood components are strung on string, not a metallic chain, which provides to the earthiness and unpretentiousness of the items.

With the metallic items, whereas some are virtually brutal or primitive trying, reminiscent of Windflowers (1989), in silver, others, reminiscent of Migratory Birds (2025), in titanium and gold, are so clean and chic that you simply marvel how Prühl may create one thing that appears as gentle as air. Others, reminiscent of Night time Birds (2017), in titanium and gold, are deceptively easy outlines that give the merest strategies of birds.

Though a lot of the items on show are necklaces, there may be one notably robust brooch, which is definitely two matching types, supposed to be worn collectively: Water Flowers (1989), in aluminum. That is an instance of seeing in actual life a piece that was acquainted solely from pictures. What I discovered: these two companion items are massive! I’d like to see them on the physique. Nevertheless it is likely to be a problem to place them on.

Prühl was born in 1937, in what was then Germany however is now Poland. She started learning jewellery at age 19, within the aftermath of World Conflict II, on the College of Artwork and Design in Halle, which grew to become a part of East Germany. In 1966, she started instructing there, staying till her retirement in 2002. She was director of the jewellery and metalsmithing division from 1994 till 2002, and her affect on a technology of jewelers is obvious yearly at Munich Jewellery Week. She nonetheless maintains a studio in Halle, the place she fabricates her metallic items, and a second studio within the forests north of town, the place she carves her wood works.

By some means, that is the primary present of Prühl’s work in the US, and it’s an excellent alternative to see a lot of her items in a single place. Though her work is present in choose museum collections, a lot of her works are, or have been, in non-public palms. The Rotasa Assortment Belief’s promised reward considerably provides to the variety of items in a significant museum. Jewellery lovers ought to hasten to see this considerate and pleasant present.

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