MODERN JEWELLERY DESIGN

Description

This publication is a first, documenting the development of modern design in mass-produced jewellery from the post-war years to the present. An autonomous trend in jewellery – albeit related to -modern art architecture and design – it has become established mainly in the German-speaking countries. Nowadays jewellery designed in Germany in medium-sized factories and studios represents a major countertrend to conventional luxury jewellery.

Since the 1990s, interest in this kind of jewellery has been growing outside Germany as well, in the US, in Europe and Asia. The author begins with a brief retrospective of the origins of modern jewellery: Art Nouveau, Art Déco, Bauhaus and New -Objectivity. The revival of goldsmithing from the mid-1960s provided the formal and intellectual foundation for what is now happening in modern mass-produced jewellery design. A large illustrated section gives an historical overview of those developments as shown by the most important classic modern jewellery design and leading current exponents with their exceptional designer pieces.

Some sixty brief portraits present the most important jewellery factories and designers with their outstanding work – a crucial chapter in the history of Scandinavian and German jewellery from ca 1960 to the present.

Design factories and studios (a selection):
Adam&Stoffel | Carl Dau | Gellner | Heinrich&Denzel | Jörg Heinz | Anela Hübel | IsabellaFa | Niessing | parsprototo | Pur | -Monika Seitter | Georg Spreng

The author Reinhold Ludwig, general editor of the journal
Art Aurea, has followed developments in modern jewellery design for the past thirty years.