Jewelry is one of the most graphic indicators of personal identity. In sync with the body, it helps to define the individuals who wear it. Jewelry is also among the most revealing examples of material culture. The necklaces, earrings, bracelets, rings, and brooches worn by people throughout the ages contain powerful clues about the eras, traditions, habitations, and societies in which they lived.
To this day, jewelry continues to act as an important signifier. The twentieth century, along with the first two decades of the twenty-first, is particularly rich in what we refer to as “studio jewelry.” Studio jewelry, which is invariably handmade, can simply celebrate process and provide an alternative to fine or costume jewelry, but it can also harbor deeper meanings—concepts far beyond jewelry’s usual function as decoration, commemoration, or talisman. Studio jewelry exists at the nexus of art, craft, and design, often reflecting aesthetic concerns, theoretical doctrines, political agendas, or popular trends. Most studio jewelry is either unique or produced in limited edition. It can be fabricated from precious metals and gemstones, or created from materials outside the norm, or both. Studio jewelry may be easy to wear, or present tactical challenges. All in all, it is a most compelling adornment—whether we regard it technically, stylistically, artistically, or even existentially.
Margaret De Patta 1903–1964
More than any other jewelry designer of the twentieth century, Margaret De Patta unified the visual theories of early progressive movements with mid-century design sensibilities to create jewelry that, while seemingly minimal, is built upon studied, complex relationships of light, form and space. De Patta was one of the first jewelry designers to elevate nontraditional materials beyond their humble origins—metal elements were layered to create depth, convex and faceted quartz added an entrancing range of optical effects and overall compositions were meticulous, as though they were clear, clean answers to conundrums only De Patta could see. As a student of the New Bauhaus and its populist spirit in the 1940s, De Patta also led the charge on the debate over mass-producing art jewelry, arguing that good design should be accessible.
De Patta was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1903 and grew up in San Diego. She trained as a sculptor and painter at the California School of Fine Arts and in 1926, she received a scholarship to attend the Arts Students League in New York. There, she encountered the European avant-garde artistic theories that would influence her jewelry work to come. In 1929, she moved back to California, settling in San Francisco and began making jewelry (one of her first pieces was her very own wedding ring). She apprenticed with local jewelers and explored her own artistic voice throughout the 1930s. From 1940 to 1941, she studied with László Moholy-Nagy at the New Bauhaus in Chicago and was greatly influenced by the artistic and societal ideals of the school and her mentors.
In 1946, already well-regarded in the arts community, her work was featured in the MoMA's exhibition Modern Handmade Jewelry, alongside works by Alexander Calder. In the 1950s, she and her husband, Eugene Bielawski, who was also a metalsmith, embarked on scaling production of her designs to make them more accessible and affordable, but they struggled with the business realities of production. Though De Patta designed some spectacular works in this era, she ultimately went back to creating unique and commissioned pieces that were more technically challenging and creatively fulfilling.
De Patta passed away in Oakland (where she lived and had a studio) in 1964; she receveied her first major retrospective in 2012 at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York. Her work is held in institutions including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum of Contemporary Art, who holds her archives and the largest collection of her work.
