Objects of Affection: Jewellery by Robert Ebendorf from the Porter • Worth Assortment

• This substantive, academic, and pleasant exhibition celebrates an modern maker famend for his technical and aesthetic contributions to studio jewellery
• Curated by Rebecca Elliot, it issued from the Mint Museum’s acquisition of a considerable amount of Ebendorf’s jewellery from the collectors Ron Porter and Joe Worth, in addition to the Robert W. Ebendorf Archive
• The exhibition reveals the breadth and depth of Ebendorf’s inventive output and affect as an educator and mentor

Objects of Affection: Jewellery by Robert Ebendorf from the Porter • Worth Assortment
April 27, 2024–February 16, 2025
Mint Museum Randolph, Charlotte, NC, US

The legendary American artist Robert Ebendorf is famend equally for his technical and aesthetic contributions to the sphere of studio jewellery. An modern thinker with a ardour for supplies, he has mentored legions of American jewellery artists throughout an extended and revered college instructing profession that spanned 1964–2016.[1] Ebendorf has participated in numerous exhibitions and had a notable touring retrospective present in 2003–2004. But solely the present exhibition, on the Mint Museum, in Charlotte, NC, has proven the breadth and depth of his inventive output and affect as a mentor.

The genesis of the exhibition, thoughtfully curated by Rebecca Elliot, lies within the Mint’s 2019 acquisition of a unprecedented trove of Ebendorf’s jewellery from the collectors Ron Porter and Joe Worth—work largely made whereas he was instructing at East Carolina College—in addition to the Robert W. Ebendorf Archive. The exhibition is augmented by items from the Mint’s personal earlier holdings of Ebendorf’s jewellery, thereby demonstrating the total nature of the museum’s dedication to the artist. Given these shut relationships, the present highlights interpersonal and institutional connections, drawing the customer into Ebendorf’s non-public {and professional} worlds.

Over his 60-year profession, Ebendorf has not adhered to 1 model or affect. Quite the opposite, his continued openness to exploring new concepts and pathways units him aside from different jewellery artists of his technology. Whereas there isn’t any one defining facet of an Ebendorf jewel, his strategy persistently favors sturdy visible patterns and juxtapositions of colour and texture. These traits are achieved by the usage of numerous supplies together with valuable metals, gems, different supplies, discovered objects, and drawings. Most of the objects that Ebendorf creates have private associations and which means. All through the exhibition his wry humorousness additionally comes by. All of those elements of Ebendorf’s oeuvre are offered by items that embody Scandinavian influences, popular culture, narrative imagery, and textual content components, in addition to themes starting from faith to reminiscence.

Objects of Affection is organized chronologically over two galleries. This can be a sensible selection. Given his numerous manufacturing, a thematic set up could be complicated and never practically as illustrative. The primary gallery covers the Fifties to Nineteen Nineties. Casework design and placement, in addition to framing wall colours, ensures that the jewellery is definitely seen and will be examined at an in depth vary. Giant-scale picture murals image the artist in his youth. They inject heat and character into the gallery, and supply a further layer of details about the artist. Beneficiant quantities of textual content accompany particular person items in addition to the decade-spanning sections.

Guests are first offered with the uncommon deal with of quite a lot of Ebendorf’s earliest works—jewellery and equipment that he made in highschool and school within the Fifties and early Nineteen Sixties. These items display his facility with metals and adherence to the reigning Scandinavian model of the time. His Fulbright Fellowship to Norway, in 1963–1964, and his Tiffany Basis Grant, in 1966–1967, allowed him to check the Nordic model first-hand. The drawings included from this era provide perception into his design sense and use of colour.

Because the exhibition progresses, items representing important our bodies of labor courting by the Nineteen Nineties are displayed, usually with accompanying drawings. The terrific drawings present perception into one other facet of his observe and inventive course of. The choices make obvious that Ebendorf labored with different supplies and blended media to discover their potential for aesthetic juxtapositions fairly than simply for his or her means to current particular narratives. Nevertheless, narrative intent is typically current or alluded to by Ebendorf’s descriptive and sometimes witty titles.

Of explicit notice on this part are not often seen brooches from 1969 that embody pictures. Of their supplies, development, and aesthetic, they echo the kind of jewellery the famend American artist J. Fred Woell was concurrently creating. Ebendorf didn’t know Woell at the moment, and felt alone in his model of creating. He later recalled that when he met Woell on the Society of North American Goldsmiths’s inaugural convention, in 1970, he felt a way of comradery—Woell was “listening to the identical music that he [Bob] did.”[2]

Within the mid-Nineteen Eighties, many industrial producers of latest supplies despatched samples to artists for experiments. Others hosted competitions or solicited artist proposals for engagement with new merchandise. In 1983, Ebendorf and his then spouse, Ivy Ross, have been invited by the Formica Company to experiment with its new ColorCore® materials as a part of the “Floor and Decoration” competitors. Whereas their brightly coloured, geometrically patterned, and large-scale bracelets gained a prize and have been completely attuned to the aesthetics of the period, they aren’t so simple as they could visually appear. Ebendorf and Ross employed a mosaic method utilizing grout to create them, thereby together with data of historic jewellery and art-making within the designs.[3]

For many who have seen his jewellery earlier than, the newspaper necklaces are sometimes probably the most remembered varieties. A Collar from 1988 stands out amongst the mixed-media work however provides solution to the sturdy group of necklaces from the Nineteen Nineties that comprise the ultimate items within the first gallery. These signify a extra non secular facet of the artist and embody the touching Misplaced Soul, Discovered Spirits sequence. Created from discovered animal components amongst different supplies, these necklaces are elegiac and extremely highly effective.

Shifting into the second gallery causes a shock to the senses. The readability of the primary gallery provides solution to a extra crowded set up. Right here, Ebendorf’s jewellery from the 2000s–2020s, made throughout his time instructing within the East Carolina College Metallic Design program (ECU), is examined in depth. Quite than clearly presenting the persevering with arc of Ebendorf’s inventive explorations in direct context with the objects proven within the earlier gallery, his more moderen work is overtaken by the inclusion—although it’s finally appreciated—of bijou by Ebendorf’s colleagues and college students. The emphasis on this period is sensible since Porter and Worth started accumulating his jewellery presently, however this a part of the exhibition suffers from making an attempt to do an excessive amount of in a single area.

Nonetheless, there are some excellent items on this part, particularly these which reference the artist’s journey experiences. Different works discover him returning to earlier themes of faith or incorporating supplies comparable to animal physique components. Whereas these newer jewels are the results of Ebendorf pushing himself ahead they usually brim with vitality, colour, and dynamic type, they don’t possess the sense of discovery and quiet magnificence of the older works.

The collaborative items with former ECU college students comparable to Zachery Lechtenberg are excellent, and a welcome addition to the exhibition. Much less so is the area given over to items from the “BOB-BLE” venture, a name to ECU metals alumni, school, and college students to make a easy pendant for Ebendorf on the event of his retirement. Whereas the venture demonstrates the ECU jewellery neighborhood’s sturdy emotions of affection and gratitude, the items are uneven artistically. Together with just one within the present, together with the album of the total venture, would have sufficed. Finally, the jewellery by lots of Ebendorf’s former college students that’s put in in two circumstances makes a stronger assertion about the advantages of his instructing and mentorship.

The ultimate gallery of the exhibition incorporates collaged postcards despatched between Ebendorf and the collector Joe Worth, in addition to between the artist and Louis Bailey, the preschool-aged son of a colleague at East Carolina. These postcards are one other essential facet of Ebendorf’s creativity. Solely these fortunate sufficient to be his buddies or colleagues have the privilege of experiencing their richness and spirit. The show opens a revealing and completely pleasant window right into a facet of Ebendorf’s observe. This sudden however very welcome addition to the exhibition clearly demonstrates the advantages of accessing an archive.

Objects of Affection is a substantive, academic, and pleasant exhibition celebrating an essential artist who has achieved a lot for the sphere. The Mint is lucky to have this treasure of a set, and I can think about most of the works discovering their method into subsequent museum initiatives on jewellery or different elements of artwork historical past. Therein lies the fantastic thing about an Ebendorf jewel. Whether or not by itself or in quite a lot of contexts, it’s going to at all times add to the dialogue between artwork varieties.

A richly illustrated catalog, with essays by Rebecca Elliot and Toni Greenbaum and interviews with the artist and collectors Ron Porter and Joe Worth, accompanies the present. Go to the exhibition web page right here.

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[1] Ebendorf taught at Stetson College (1964–1966), the College of Georgia (1967–1971), the State College of New York, New Paltz (1971–1989), and East Carolina College, in Greenville, NC (1997–2016).

[2] Robert Ebendorf, interview with the writer, November 13, 2018.

[3] Rebecca Elliot, exhibition wall textual content in Objects of Affection: Jewellery by Robert Ebendorf from the Porter • Worth Assortment, Mint Museum Randolph, 2024–2025.