On rare occasions, famous painters challenge themselves by changing mediums.
Clocks and spoons transfer from painted canvas into a three-dimensional realm, meant to be worn rather than framed.
Sculptors whose work can occupy an entire garden shift their focus to a statement that hangs on a fine chain.
French collector Diane Venet has been taking advantage of her relationships with some of the most famous artists of the 20th century, including Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso, to produce a rare collection of more than 150 pieces of jewelry.
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Her collection, “Artists’ Jewelry: From Cubism to Pop, the Diane Venet Collection” will be on display through Oct. 5 at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach.
“The story of this collection is largely that of my friendships in the art world over the past 40 years,” Venet said in a press release. She called the collection “an intimate museum that I can take everywhere with me and the treasure trove which I can find on my return home.”
The work offers a new side of well-known artists, as if Vincent Van Gogh made music or Hieronymous Bosch cobbled together furniture. Even when Picasso paints stoneware, the piece is still known as “a Picasso,” since artistic style is deeply personal to each individual artist.
Because each artist in this exhibit, of which there are more than 140, comes from different artistic movements and different mediums, their decision to create jewelry makes the collection unique.
Sculptors Louise Nevelson and Arnaldo Pomodoro change the scale of their work to interact with space in a completely different way.
Polarizing contemporaries Kenny Scharf and Jeff Koons, both part of a movement in which artists tested the meaning of spectacle, made pieces of silver and gold.
Visitors are invited to interact with the jewelry, positioning an arm or a neck to imagine what the stunning accessories would look like on them.
Even photographer Man Ray changed mediums for Venet.
Venet bought “Optic Topic,” a shimmering gold mask by Ray, as a gift to her husband. Its form mimics a race car driver’s mask, with alien-like perforations instead of eye slots. Ray made the 18-karat gold piece two years before he died in 1976.
Dali’s “Montre Petite Cuillère,” meaning “Small Spoon Watch,” translates his motif of spoons and clocks into a hair brooch. The gold and blue enamel captures Dali’s strange magic.
Forged in 1957 and meticulously preserved, this hair brooch showcases Dali’s distinct style, as seen in his life’s work of 39 jewelry pieces and more than 1,500 paintings.
The exhibit includes a one-of-a-kind 23-karat gold pendant by Picasso, which he called “Le Grand Faune” or “The Great Faun.”
The pendant adorns a shape similar to a sun or an amoeba with a wry smile. Engraved by hand and left unpolished, the pendant showcases the hands that made each mark upon the gold’s surface.
To supplement the exhibit, the Norton unveiled rare pieces from its vast collection.
The additions point to the unity between an artist’s work on canvas and in jewelry.
Bold prints by artists such as Alexander Calder, never before displayed by the Norton, show that an artist’s style transcends medium.
A minimal design by sculptor and painter Lucio Fontana, called “Ellisse Concetto Spaziale” or “Ellipse Spatial Concept,” is a bracelet that mirrors the oil-on-wood piece of the same name.
It is made of silver and pink lacquer. It fits with the artists’ later works, which are frequently described as “space capsules.”
“This exhibition bridges the gap between craft and fine art, two creative forms that seldom intersect or are interpreted within one exhibition,” J. Rachel Gustafson, who curated the exhibit with Venet, said in a press release.
Never before experienced is a sound piece by Sheila Concari, made exclusively to accompany the patrons through the Norton. Concari’s composition uses speech to complement the show’s visual elements and investigate the interaction between human voices and new technologies, Concari said in a press release.
The exhibit is open through Oct. 5 from 10 am to 5 pm daily except Tuesdays and until 10 pm on Fridays.
Tickets are $18, with discounts for seniors and students. Norton members, children under 12, active members of the U.S. military, veterans and Florida teachers can attend for free. West Palm Beach residents get free admission on Saturdays.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
