From Picasso to Koons: the Artist as Jeweler

Numerous leading artists of the 20th-century showed an interest in jewellery, often through love of a woman, or for their daughters. Despite the opening of art from the 1910s onwards to the abstract and conceptual, they happily bridged the gap that seemed to be deepening between art and craftsmanship. The jewels exert a fascination in part because they bear the trace of the relationship between the creator and the recipient of the work who, in wearing it, offers this to the view of all. The shift from the function of muse to that of support for the work aims to reveal all the aspects of the support a loved woman can offer the artist: collector, interlocutor, and inspirer. More, these jewels frequently accompany the evolution of the artist's plastic style, especially focused because of the change of scale. The collection of Diane Venet, which she regularly exhibits as in the New York show in the early autumn of 2011 is set out like a veritable intimate museum, narrating a specific history of art.