THE PADUA SCHOOL

Overview

The Padua School is emanated from the ‘Istituto Pietro Selvatico’ in Padua. The distinctive features of this jewellery are the use of gold reminiscent of the goldsmith’s art in antiquity and a modern and abstract formal idiom individualised within the group.

Mario Pinton, who brought the movement international recognition and acclaim in the 1950s and ’60s, is credited with founding the experimental goldsmithing movement in Padua. Francesco Pavan has enlarged the scope of the Padua School with his kinetic, geometric formal idiom. The breakthrough on the international jewellery scene took place in the late 1960s with Giampaolo Babetto, under whose tutelage the geometric and Minimalist tendency was most pronounced. Other distinguished artists in jewellery such as Graziano Visintin, Renzo Pasquale, Annamaria Zanella, Stefano Marchetti and Giovanni Corvaya continued on the lines already laid down or, by experimenting with the use of new materials including plastic and an expressive formal lexis, each went their own highly individual ways.

A long awaited survey of more than fifty years of art jewellery from the Padua School covering its work from 1950 to the present. Works by the master goldsmiths Mario Pinton, Francesco Pavan and Giampaolo Babetto and other artists together add up to the distinctive, typically ‘Paduan’ look in art jewellery.