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Gold, onyx, lacquer, rock
crystal and diamond brooch,
1925, French, by Jean Fouquet, Toledo Museum of
Art,
Mr. and Mrs. George M. Jones, Jr. Fund.
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Before the worldwide web was even a blip on the horizon,
world’s fairs offered an international showcase for participating countries to
share with a global audience what was considered cutting edge at the time. They
celebrated ingenuity and creativity, as embodied in the thousands of objects
put on display.
A new exhibition, “Inventing the Modern World: Decorative
Arts at the World’s Fairs 1851–1939,” is co-organized by the Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Carnegie Museum of Art in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It offers a rare look back at the wonders that were
offered at the world’s fairs and international expositions from the London
Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851 through the
New York World’s Fair of 1939.
JEWELRY A STAR ATTRACTION
“Jewelry was an essential component of the world’s fairs
from the very beginning,” says Catherine L. Futter, Ph.D., The Helen Jane and
R. Hugh “Pat” Uhlmann curator of decorative arts for the Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art. The world came together in one place at these fairs and presented what
Futter describes as extraordinary “top-of-the-line” objects.
For jewelers, it was an opportunity to showcase not only
current design trends or new manufacturing techniques but also new materials.
Tiffany & Co. started showing at world’s fairs early on and had huge
displays, says Futter. “The 1939 New York fair had lots of jewelers. Tiffany
was promoting champagne diamonds and we have in the exhibition the floral
brooch with white and yellow diamonds that illustrates that.”
These world’s fairs were also about nationalism and
international competition — “our things are better than your things,” says
Futter, who co-curated the exhibit with Jason T. Busch, curatorial chair for
collections and The Alan G. and Jane A. Lehman curator of decorative arts and
design at the Carnegie Museum of Art.
For example, Futter says, “a beautiful iris brooch by Louis
Comfort Tiffany, included in this exhibit, showed off Montana sapphires,
proving at the time that America had gem-quality minerals and you didn’t have
to go farther afield.”
EMPHASIZING THE EXTRA SPECIAL
The Nelson-Atkins exhibit concentrates on the specific time
frame that starts with the first world’s fair held in 1851 in London, organized
under the auspices of Prince Albert and Henry Cole, and ends with the 1939 New
York World’s Fair. “The reason we end with 1939 was because after that you had
World War II, so there’s a big gap before the next one was held,” explains
Futter. “But also, even by 1939, world’s fairs started to focus less on objects
and more on ideas. So we felt 1939 was a logical break.”
Illustrating the range of unique items on view at the fairs,
the exhibit presents 200 decorative objects, 19 of which are jewelry. While the
curators tried as much as possible to display the actual object that was
exhibited, sometimes the item shown is the same model. And in a small number of
instances, a representative piece “stands in,” says Futter, for a manufacturer
or a particular technique shown at a fair.
The exhibit is divided into five chronological periods:
1855-1873, 1876-1897, 1900-1911, 1915-1925, 1929-1939. But within those
categories, says Futter, there are thematic divisions that include
“technological innovation and revived techniques, nationalism, cross-cultural
influences and historicism. Jewelry can be in more than one section — most of
the objects in the exhibit tell multiple stories.”
A HAND’S-ON APPROACH
“We looked at literally tens of thousands of things,” says
Futter. “I think every one of the objects in the exhibition invites visitors to
learn more about them. And once you do, they become even more intriguing.”
Because world’s fairs themselves were interactive, says
Futter, the Nelson-Atkins installation is also interactive. Included are
vintage stereoscopes and View-Masters people can experience firsthand as well
as twenty-first-century 3-D technology where participants can virtually handle
objects and view short films detailing their importance.
In the gallery devoted to works from around 1900, a low-tech
interactive display allows visitors to view their reflections in a three-sided
mirror “wearing” the Tiffany & Co. iris brooch, or Jean Fouquet Art Deco
brooch (shown below), the Castellani diadem or a Lalique grape necklace.
JEWELRY CHOICES
To bring the best examples to the exhibit, the curators
reached out to museums, dealers, collectors and companies that were the
original exhibitors. “The Carnegie had an aluminum and gold bracelet which,
while it probably wasn’t exhibited at a fair, illustrates the fact that
aluminum was used in jewelry. There are local collectors here who owned some of
the historicist jewelry that we borrowed. Some of the circa-1920s jewelry was
lent by New York City jewelry dealer Lee Siegelson. The Walters Art Museum in
Baltimore was another source — Henry Walters bought pieces at the Paris
1889 fair, including the Tiffany iris brooch and, in St. Louis in 1904, the
Lalique plique-à-jour pansy brooch and the Lalique grape necklace. Tiffany
& Co. also was a very generous lender,” says Futter.
The names of the designers who exhibited at these fairs reads
like a who’s who of the jewelry world. The exhibit pays homage to them with an
array that includes a Lalique “wasp” stickpin, a Fabergé tiara, a Cartier Art
Deco Egyptian faience belt buckle with diamond accents, a Georges Fouquet
corsage ornament and a Maison Boucheron bracelet that shimmers with pavé
diamonds.
A VALUABLE PEDIGREE
Does having been exhibited at a world’s fair add to the
luster — and value — of jewelry? Perhaps. “I think in the past ten years,
there’s much more of a consciousness about world’s fair provenance,” says
Futter. “Before that, people were ‘oh, that’s nice.’ But now there’s a
heightened awareness of something that was shown at a world’s fair. And it’s
definitely elevating the prices of all sorts of decorative arts. Just recently,
in January 2012, there was a matchsafe sold at Christie’s. Because it had been
exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1889 and it was quite lovely — in the form
of a stylized Native American raven’s head with semiprecious stones and inlaid
mother-of-pearl — the price it sold for was very strong. If you look at auction
catalogs now, they will say, “shown at a world’s fair.’”
According to Siegelson, who lent several pieces to the
exhibit, “The world’s fairs brought together the best examples of art and design
with advances in science, architecture and technology. Thousands of visitors
toured the exhibitions. Designers such as Cartier, Boucheron and Templier pushed themselves to create masterful designs. The
world’s fair venue freed the artists from making jewelry for consumption and
gave designers the opportunity to create beautiful jewelry and objects that
showed the skill of the maker. The pieces exhibited at the world’s fairs are
valuable today because those that survived are often the absolute best examples
of the era.”
“Inventing the Modern World: Decorative Arts at the World’s
Fairs 1851–1939,” runs at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City,
Missouri, through August 19, 2012; at the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, from October 13, 2012 to February 24, 2013; New Orleans Museum of
Art, April 14 to August 4, 2013 and The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina,
September 22, 2013 to January 19, 2014.
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - July 2012. To subscribe click here.