4 new jewelry books

May 27, 2023

As the sunny days arrive, I offer you this selection of jewelry books to enrich your jewelry culture as going outside. Four new books arrived in my bookcase and I loved discovering them. So if you’re looking for something to add to your spring pile of books, here are some brilliant ideas!

1-“Joyce J. Scott: messages” – Arnoldsche – from 28 euros

Joyce J. Scott was born in 1948 in Baltimore where she still lives. She lives a few blocks from the mythical Pennsylvania Avenue where Cab Calloway & Billy Holiday played in the 1920s during the golden age of American jazz. She studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, then at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel Allende and finally at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts (US). Beads have been with her since the age of 5 and she loves working with them.

Artist, sculptor, lecturer, she received the McArthur Fellowship in 2016 and a Smithsonian Visionary Artist in 2019. Known for her outspoken stance, she contributes to her community and is involved, for example, with the Enoch Pratt Free Library on North Avenue where she leads lectures and jewellery workshops. Her life is quite incredible, as are her personal commitments, which the book reveals through the presentation of her work

The book proposed by Arnoldsche Editions takes you on a journey of discovery of her work that you can also discover until June 2024 since two exhibitions organized by the Mobilia Gallery which will take place at the Fuller Craft Museum (June 24 – November 5, 2023) and at the Crocker Art Museum (January 28 – June 23, 2024).

2-“The art & times of Daniel Jocz” – edited by Sarah Davis – Arnoldsche – from 38 euros

The Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton has devoted an 8 month exhibition to the work of American jeweler and sculptor Daniel Jocz. If you do not know his name, this richly illustrated book will allow you to fill this gap as his work is so fascinating.

Born in 1943 in Beloit, Wisconsin, he defines himself as an artist and began his career as a sculptor. He never took a course in metalworking and describes himself as a self-taught artist who learned from trial and error. In the 1980s, he moved away from large-scale works to experiment with jewelry and the miniaturisation of his work. As an important figure in the Boston jewelry scene, he was long represented by the Mobilia Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Jocz’s work is a never-ending series of experiments. His pieces are in the world’s most important collections and constantly question what his life was. The autobiographical and humorous aspect of his creations must be constantly taken into consideration to understand his vision of art and jewelry.

This book, intended as a catalogue for the first American retrospective of his work, will allow you to better grasp the challenges of his work and to immerse yourself in a creative process that is as astonishing as it is exciting. For Jocz is an unavoidable signature of the American contemporary scene.

3-“Sacrés outils” – Céline Robin & Robert Mazlo – Robert Mazlo Endowment Fund for Contemporary Art and Jewellery – 88 euros

I still remember the excitement of the “Sacrés Outils” exhibition presented in 2017 at the Mazlo Gallery. It was one of the first exhibitions I visited at this place that I particularly love and never tire of. So I am particularly excited about the publication of this book.

The first volume in the “Jewellery as Art” series, “Sacrés Outils!” offers a reflection on technology and its objects seen through the prism of jewelry, with a special focus on contemporary jewellery. Throughout the 464 pages of this remarkable work, you will first immerse yourself in the history and intimate links between the hand, the tool and the jewel.

Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the modern era and the 20th century, the first part of the book offers a detailed and richly documented analysis of the technical phenomenon of jewelry from its first occurrences in the history of mankind up to the 30 glorious years, which saw the emergence of experimental jewelry that raises the question of the intrinsic value of jewelry, its representation and its purpose in a society in the throes of change.

For this first volume, thirty artists were invited to propose their vision of the tool and the jewel, thus questioning its meaning and perception. Among the names, we will retain (because it is necessary to choose and it is there the hardest) Jo Pond, Gabi Veit, Sigurd Bronger, Peter Machata, Fabrizio Tridenti, Sungho Cho or Ramon Puig Cuyas or Lisa & Scott Cylinder.

Few books have touched me deeply at the beginning of this year 2023 but “Sacrés Outils!” is one of them and I’ve been looking forward to reading/ reading again it since it arrived at home. I can’t get enough of this work of great quality which admirably carries the voice of a jewel, often funny, often touching, often committed but, oh so! remarkable by its quality of execution and necessary for a more global reflection about jewels in a perpetual changing world.

4-“Therese Hilbert – Rot” – Arnoldsche – from 38 euros

From 30 March to 30 July 2023, Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum in Munich will be exhibiting the work of Therese Hilbert in a retrospective exhibition of 250 pieces representing 50 years of a rich artistic life.

After studying at the Zurich School of Applied Arts, she moved to Munich where she trained in jewellery at the Academy of Fine Arts under Hermann Jünger. He and Max Fröhlich can be considered as important figures in the emergence of her artistic discourse. Since then, she has been living in Germany and has initiated her own creations, making the colour red one of her stylistic signatures.

Red is the colour of fire and the God Eros. It is the colour of the volcano and lava and it is a form of obsession for this prolific designer, whose creations are first and foremost objects to be worn. Imposing, sometimes massive, Therese Hilbert’s creations oscillate between jewellery and sculpture, proposing pieces that are radically pure and deliberately effective. Perfectly crafted, masterful gestures, her work sublimates the material and the hand through a false simplicity. The series “Das Vertraute Familiar” and “Yali” are among my favourites.

If you go to Munich in the next few weeks, which I hope you will, don’t miss the exhibition. Otherwise, the book is an excellent palliative and will make up for the impossibility to go to Germany.

See you soon!

ABOUT ME

marie chabrol

Hello my name Is Marie. Speaker, consultant & teacher, I write with passion about the world of jewelry.

my ideal library

This is my ideal library. All these books are part of my own library and I always read them with great pleasure.