Featuring nearly 150 brooches, necklaces, bracelets, and rings created by seminal designers from Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America, Jewelry of Ideas illuminates the radical conceptual and material developments in jewelry design that have transformed the field. Beginning with mid-20th-century American and European pioneers who pushed the boundaries of form and material, the exhibition traces the evolution of jewelry up to the avant-garde developments of the 1980s and through to the most recent innovations.

The works on view show how jewelry has moved far beyond its aesthetic considerations to stake out new creative territories through a mastery of materials, innovative techniques, and conceptual inquiry. In the collection are many of the field’s most experimental designers, including Joyce Scott, Friedrich Becker, Ted Noten, Kiff Slemmons, Otto Künzli, Ramona Solberg, Arline Fisch, Thomas Gentille, Attai Chen, Doug Bucci, and Jamie Bennett.

Exhibition Catalog
Illustrated with full-color photographs of the nearly 150 pieces of jewelry, this hardcover book also includes essays by curator and educator Ursula Ilse-Neuman on the evolution of contemporary jewelry from the mid-century to the present day. Process statements from the more than 100 jewelers represented in the collection further illuminate the groundbreaking materials and techniques, as well as conceptual scope, of these diverse jewelers’ achievements.

Available from SHOP Cooper Hewitt.