Contemporary Jewellery in Portugal: From the avant-garde of the 1960s to the early 21st century

Book / Arnoldsche Artists CriticalThinking History

Published: 11.11.2019

Contemporary Jewellery in Portugal: From the avant-garde of the 1960s to the early 21st century.

Cristina Filipe

Edited by:: Arnoldsche Art Publishers

Edited at:: Stuttgart

Edited on:: 2019

Technical data:: 408 pp. 17 x 24,5 cm, 126 ills, Hardcover, English.

ISBN / ISSN:: 978-3-89790-565-8

Price:: from 38 €

Order:: Arnoldsche Art Publishers
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Inner page.

Cristina Filipe presents a first comprehensive examination of the history of Portuguese studio jewellery. From the dawn of the avant-garde in the 1960s to the contemporary trends of the early twenty-first century, she takes a look at the decisive period in which the term "jewellery" was repeatedly redefined.

The author shins a light on the societal upheavals as well as the artists who contributed to the transformation of jewellery design in Portugal. Despite pressure and restrictions of the dictatorship under António de Oliveira Salazar (1930s–1974), the increasing autonomisation of jewellery – away from traditional jewellery making and towards positions of contemporary art and its discourse – led to new views on topics such as value, status, ornament and the performative aspects of wearing jewellery.

Cristina Filipe explores in five main chapters the way in which international developments provoked the country’s artists and the specific responses they developed to them. Courtesy of many interviews with protagonists from different generations, the author has been able to trace in detail Portugal’s developments and trends in contemporary jewellery.

Numerous illustrations, arranged into chapters, provide a broad overview of the diversity of design-led concepts and the materials used. In addition, Cristina Filipe has staged photographs featuring various pieces of jewellery alongside protagonists who have contributed to the development of Portuguese jewellery.

With this first comprehensive study on Portuguese art jewellery from the 1960s to shortly after the turn of the millennium, Cristina Filipe has accomplished a pioneering work: a comprehensive insight into the artistic jewellery praxis of a region that still has much to discover.