Art as Jewelry as Art

Art as Jewelry as Art

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 16. 'Penetrable'.

Jesús Rafael Soto

'Penetrable'

Lot Closed

October 6, 04:14 PM GMT

Estimate

25,000 - 30,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Jesús Rafael Soto

1923 - 2005

'Penetrable'


1968, signed GEM, 800, with maker’s mark

a pair of large kinetic earrings in silver with silver-gilt bi-colored moving rods; executed by GEM Montebello for an edition of unknown size; omega clip-ons with supportive back-of-ear hooks

3½ by 2 11⁄16 in.; 9 by 6.8 cm

Private Collection, England

Loretta Yarlow, Jewelry as Sculpture as Jewelry, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 1973, another pair illustrated no. 124

Bijoux d’artistes = Artists’ Jewellery, Galerie Sven, Paris, 1976, another pair illustrated, p. 13, no. 21

Diana Küppers, Künstlerschmuck = objets d’art, Hirmer, Munich, 2009, another pair illustrated p. 152

Diane Venet, From Picasso to Jeff Koons: The Artist as Jeweler, Skira, Milan, 2011, another pair illustrated p. 220

Diane Venet, Bijoux d'Artistes, de Calder à Koons, la collection idéale de Diane Venet, Flammarion, Paris, 2018, p. 180-181

Paola Stroppiana, Scultura Aurea, Gioielli d’Artista per un nuovo Rinascimento, Gli Ori, Pistoia, 2019, this example illustrated p. 167

Emmanuel Guigon and Manon Lecaplain, Picasso I Les Joies D’artista = Picasso and Artist’s Jewellery, Fundació Museu Picasso de Barcelona, Barcelona, 2021, another pair ill. p. 15

Jesús Rafael Soto designed these 'Penetrable' earrings concurrently as he was creating large-scale works enabling people to physically enter the piece and observe how the object and body interact. A blend of geometric abstraction, Minimalist sculpture, and playground, his simple grids of colorful PVC tubing were usually suspended from free-standing frames and often placed outside. Soto always considered them ephemeral, and only a handful have survived the inevitable wear and tear. These 'Penetrable' earrings executed by GEM are a good example of how GEM Montebello created unconventional designs by well-known artists at reasonable prices.