Artist jewelry had been little known and under-appreciated. Pieces are rare and often created as gifts for loved ones. Picasso, for instance, made an engraved stone amulet for his lover Dora Maar, while Giacometti created special buttons for the couture designs of his friend Elsa Schiaparelli. This is not jewelry made on a mass scale but, for the most part, a side project that offers an alternative, miniaturized mode of creative expression that doesn’t require a coterie of assistants or even the foundry that might be required for a large-scale work.
Gallery owner and art collector Louisa Guinness opens up about the many meanings of Artist Jewellery in this article by Rachel Garrahan, the exceptional jewellery director of British Vogue, for the Patek Philippe Magazine.
A selection of the most iconic pieces belonging to Guinness and the Gallery Collection adorn the lines of this article, as photographed by Joel Stans and Lisa Jahovic.
