Mint Museum of Craft + Design to display ~ ' Ornament as Art '

Written by Julius Tuymans Sunday, 01 May 2011 21:16

CHARLOTTE, N.C.   − Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection places contemporary jewelry within a larger framework of 20^th and 21^st century art. Opening at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design this fall, the exhibition showcases a broad array of national and international works from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s celebrated Helen Williams Drutt Collection of contemporary jewelry. On view 16 August through 4 January, 2009.

Over her lifetime, the legendary scholar, educator and gallery director Helen Williams Drutt, has assembled arguably one of the most comprehensive collections of contemporary studio jewelry in the world. Ornament as Art  features approximately 275 pieces of jewelry spanning the 1960s through today, as well as drawings, watercolors, sketchbooks and sculptural constructions by the artists. Placed in context with significant movements in the non-craft art world, the exhibition encourages the appreciation of contemporary jewelry beyond its traditional boundaries without ignoring its roots.

 Objects on view include necklaces, bracelets, brooches, earrings and rings culled from 15 different countries. Highlights include a sterling silver and polyester resin Torque 22-D Neckpiece (1971) by Stanley Lechtzin, a leading innovator in electroforming technologies; Claus Bury’s Ring (1970), a revolutionary work that blends precious metal with alternative materials; and Bernhard Schobinger’s Scherben vom Moritzplatz Berlin necklace (1982-1983), a distinctive combination of antique crystal beads with shards of Coca-Cola bottles found in a politically charged section of Berlin.

Ornament as Art  is accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue available for purchase in The Mint Museum Shops. Cindi Strauss, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s curator of modern and contemporary decorative arts and design, will give a public lecture about the exhibition on Sunday, August 24 at 3:00 p.m. at the Mint Museum of Craft + Design. For a complete schedule of programs surrounding this exhibition, visit www.mintmuseum.org

Ornament as Art: Avant-Garde Jewelry from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection has been organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Generous funding has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rotasa Foundation.

The Mint Museum is one institution with two locations. The Mint Museum of Art, located at 2730 Randolph Road, has collections of art of the ancient Americas, American art, contemporary art, historic costume, and a ceramics collection well-known for works from North Carolina. The Mint Museum of Craft + Design is located at 220 North Tryon Street and displays national and international contemporary crafts made of ceramics, metal, wood, glass and textiles.

The Mint Museum is supported, in part, with an Operating Grant from the Arts & Science Council, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Inc.; the North Carolina Arts Council, an agency funded by the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts; the City of Charlotte; and its members.

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