Susan Grant Lewin – Artwork Jewellery Discussion board

As soon as upon a time, a really, very very long time in the past, I discovered myself on a river boat heading down the Danube from Passau, Germany, to Vienna, Austria. I used to be within the US Infantry, having been skilled rigorously as a machine gunner. It was August 11. I’d been given a seven-day cross. The voyage down the Blue Danube by means of the various locks was fairly superb. The boat’s captain used the general public deal with system not often, after which solely to call an vital fort. Generally they had been in destroy, and generally household occupied. At all times excessive above on nice mountainous rocks. The placement of the startling discovery of the Venus of Willendorf was identified with nice justified satisfaction.

Within the stern of the boat, the place I selected to take a seat, had been 20 or so Norwegian college college students. They had been all holding large black umbrellas to guard themselves from the recent solar. They had been well mannered and quiet. You possibly can hear the water breaking alongside the prow of the boat. At each small village alongside the banks, 10 to fifteen youngsters would dive into the Danube, swimming alongside the boat to the following village the place they might climb out of the water in nice jollity, waving to us as they walked again to their house village.

The nice journey took all the day from early morning to shortly after sundown to catch sight of Vienna glittering at midnight, the way in which nice cities on our bodies of water do. The Danube isn’t blue any longer. It’s a slightly muddy brown. Nonetheless, on this night time in August it seemed to be product of polished black glass. A couple of ripples proved to the passengers we had been on water, and never crusing within the sky.

Vienna is a big cosmopolitan metropolis constructed by and for emperors. There’s a lot to see. My small lodge was within the metropolis correct, however removed from the central space. Every day I took a bus towards the middle and every single day I handed a big, stunning palatial constructing. A tiny bronze plaque was hooked up to it, unreadable from the bus window. Each day, there, too, was parked an awesome basic black Rolls Royce from the Twenties. On the fifth day I may now not resist the car and needed to see the dashboard, all the time so fantastically crafted in classic “Rolls.”

I learn the small bronze plaque, and to my nice shock the constructing proved to be a museum with an exhibition on the primary ground. I had thought it a personal residence due to the good car.

After climbing a flight of broad stairs, I used to be confronted with a pair of extensive, tall double doorways. Upon opening considered one of them, I noticed two rows of old school instances, the kind with sloping glass back and front panels, like an elongated pyramid. The glass was framed in oak.

There have been two rows of instances, 10 in every row, with a wider aisle between them. The instances had been crammed with tremblant diamond brooches. There have been a whole lot of brooches and hundreds of diamonds. If you’re not acquainted with tremblant jewellery, it was extraordinarily in style within the 1700s. They had been jewellery items created for the very wealthy. This was, after all, lengthy earlier than the invention of electrical lighting. Think about, then, nice candle-lit crystal chandeliers illuminating a ballroom or an unlimited eating corridor. In tremblant, diamonds are mounted on tiny springs or different such gadgets product of treasured metals, silver, white gold, or platinum. These permit the diamonds to tremble from the slightest of actions. Their buildings are so delicate even a breath of air could make them transfer.

There was nobody within the room however myself. Remarkably, not even a guard. I walked between the 20 outdated instances, the wooden ground’s vibration transposing by means of the wooden legs of the instances and inflicting the hundreds of diamonds to tremble and ship sparks of sunshine all through all the room.

By no means had I seen and even dreamed of such scintillation.

Flashing ahead by means of quite a few a long time, I return to Vienna. There I spoke to one of many nice collectors of latest artist jewellery. She had seen the identical exhibition. Because it occurred, the jewellery was within the constructing for only one summer season whereas the tremblants’ unique house was being renovated. I had seen this gorgeous show in its magnificent setting by pure likelihood.

As I streak quick ahead from the 1700s into the 20th century, reminiscence and precise time has a method of shifting with nice velocity, is it not so?

Within the twentieth century, I meet Susan Grant Lewin.

How, the place, and when remained a thriller to us each for a few years. Then immediately sooner or later I remembered.

It was on the opening of an exhibition that Susan herself had organized through the time she was international artistic director of the Formica Company. The exhibition consisted of objects made utilizing Formica, primarily jewellery and furnishings. Susan requested me if I might be excited by working with the brand new ColorCore product. Common Formica, developed a long time earlier, had a darkish base. Solely the uppermost floor had coloration, and generally printed designs. It was shiny, glossy, wore extraordinarily effectively. It modified the look of kitchens all over the world, and diners throughout America. Its flaw was the sides and corners, for there the darkish base materials confirmed. The brand new ColorCore was homogeneous, and extra refined. It was 1 mm thick of strong coloration, the end almost matte. The place corners and edges met, the darkish line was eradicated. Sure, I might be excited by working with it! And so started our lengthy skilled friendship.

When Susan wrote her e-book, American Artwork Jewellery Immediately (Abrams, 1996), she invited me and two different folks together with herself to assist within the number of works that will be printed. Beforehand she had contacted a large number of jewelers to submit images. This was pre-internet, in the event you can bear in mind such a time. Practically all of the jewelers responded, so there have been large stacks of labor to course of. Step one was to eradicate images that will not reproduce to excessive requirements.

When the e-book launched, it was effectively acquired and bought out shortly.

From there lots of historical past started to evolve. Susan was enamored of latest artwork jewellery. Her first piece was mockingly—since she collects primarily American work—not American, however slightly a hoop by the Swedish jeweler Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe. She nonetheless wears it in the present day. I’ve seen it typically.

Susan is a world traveler. She has an awesome assortment of artist jewellery, which she is slowly donating to main museums all through the world. Her explicit curiosity is in putting American work, as she accurately feels it’s not well-enough identified in Europe. It is a difficult, complicated activity, for donating work to an vital museum is way extra sophisticated than you may suppose.

Her pursuits are extensive within the arts. All of them apply. Portray, sculpture, structure, dance, fashionable and classical. However her overriding ardour is artist’s jewellery made by the jewelers themselves.

After I first met Susan, she was a bit indiscriminate together with her purchases. That’s to say, she may buy a number of cheap items with no actual inventive content material just because she appreciated them and needed to put on them. Slowly this segued into refined work of fantastic craftsmanship and distinctive concept. Each all the time a required absolute.

I’ve been to many jewellery exhibitions with Susan. As soon as, in Munich, Peter Skubic, the good Austrian jeweler, and myself went by means of an unlimited jewellery exhibition discovering what we thought the perfect works had been so we may level them out to Susan. She seemed fastidiously at every bit we recommended. Then, as Susan will, she picked out precisely what she felt was proper for her.

I wrote of tremblants originally of this essay. Effectively, Susan is a tremblant when she walks into a jewellery exhibition. Her eyes mild up, her thoughts quivers on high-quality—albeit calm—springs, and she or he dances within the ballroom of knickknack.

Now, you could suppose Susan Grant Lewin, however there’s a lot extra. Nonetheless, I’ve used up my assigned allotment of phrases.

The opinions said right here don’t essentially categorical these of AJF.

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