ANTON CEPKA

Overview

With around 400 pieces of jewellery and sculptures from 1963 to 2005 the current publication documents the fascinating world of the pioneering jewellery designer Anton Cepka and with this retrospective brings his kinetic jewellery to a wider audience for the very first time.

Jewellery and object artist Anton Cepka, born in the former Czechoslovakian, now Slovakian town of Šulekovo in 1936, is one of the most important jewellery artists of the twentieth century and a protagonist of the so-called studio jewellery movement, which arose after the Second World War. Today he is considered the doyen of Slovakian and Czech jewellery designers.

Whitened silver, optical glass, stones and modern acrylic glass are Anton Cepka’s preferred materials. Novel spatial concepts, which at first are relief-like and later become almost sculptural, are created in the form of brooches and pendants. His jewellery and his objects as he himself says ‘bear all the signs of today. At the same time they express the reflection of today’s over-engineered world.’ Movement and light unexpectedly come into play in these pieces; thus kinetic art enters jewellery art for the first time in a conceptual way. Aerotechnical, fragile futuristic forms, the colour of the whitened silver and titles such as Radar, Antenna, Airplane, Satellite and Planet reflect the current, technological advancement and reference of our times. The execution of the objects – the drilling, sawing, filing and cutting of the silver by hand – bears witness to a great craftsmanship that is essential to Cepka’s objects.