“May you all live to be 100 years old, and may the last voice you hear be mine.” Frank Sinatra “His camera was a constant companion from his early teens. My daughter, his granddaughter, unearthed these gems and they are seen here for the first time.” Nancy Sinatra 2015 marks 100 years since the birth of Frank Sinatra. The year will be full of events to commemorate the life and music of one of the Twentieth Century’s biggest stars including exhibitions, concerts and variety of album releases. A very special event will be the publication of SINATRA, a luxurious book curated by Frank Sinatra’s granddaughter, Amanda Erlinger. Amanda has compiled a wealth of rare and unseen images from the family archives for inclusion in the book along with an incredible array of stars to contribute words and imagery. Undoubtedly, SINATRA forms a wonderful, personal memory of Frank Sinatra. This spectacular 400-page book – which comes in luxury clam-shell case – is signed by Nancy Sinatra, Frank Sinatra Jnr., and Tina Sinatra and includes a rare and unpublished signed print of a photograph of Frank Sinatra taken by Nancy Sinatra Snr (see image below, middle of the row). With contributions from an incredible all-star cast including – Nancy Sinatra, Martin Scorsese, George Clooney, Billy Joel, Neil Sedaka, Quincy Jones, Paul McCartney, Tony Bennett, and Elvis Costello and featuring the work of photographers – Herbert Gehr, Milton H. Greene, Bob Willoughby, Dezo Hoffmann, Ken Veeder, Ted Allan, John Dominis, Ed Thrasher, John Bryson, and Terry O’Neill. SINATRA includes photos from the Capitol Records and Warner Bros. Records archives, unpublished family photos of the Sinatra family and, most excitingly, many photos taken by Frank Sinatra himself, including several self-portraits. This edition is limited to 1000 copies and published in association with Iconic Images and Frank Sinatra Enterprises. “It is fitting that the voice that defined a century should have a centenary. Francis Albert Sinatra, my father, was born December 12, 1915, in Hoboken New Jersey. He came from humble beginnings and set off from there to live a life that few can imagine. He is the embodiment of the American Dream.” Nancy Sinatra “Just the mention of his name. You can say it like an incantation, and a whole world is right there before you. Sinatra…” Martin Scorsese “He was the epitome of what singing is all about. Beautiful sounds, smooth as silk, effortless, impeccable phrasing, stylish, intelligent, and full of heart.” Barbra Streisand

The Viennese gallery Slavik has been exhibiting international contemporary jewelry art of the highest quality for 20 years. The rotating bronze disc above the entrance beckons the visitor to enter into a unique universe and into a singular architectonic design concept. As a meeting place for artists, collectors and museum professionals from all over the world, it is the goal of the gallery owner Renate Slavik to provide a deeper understanding of the fascinating nature of contemporary jewelry art. Since 1990 the former antique dealer has supported unique, handcrafted jewelry with her enthusiasm and vision. “Art on the body” made of paper, synthetic material, tin as well as traditional “ingredients” like gold, pearls and diamonds are displayed in her changing exhibitions. In the gallery artistic impetus has been provided by Annelies Planteydt and Gijs Bakker from Holland; from international masters of studio jewelry such as Giampaolo Babetto or from the Padua School of Francesco Pavan. The gallery’s repertoire includes avant-garde jewelry by Annamaria Zanella, Jacqueline Ryan, Stefano Marchetti and Giovanni Corvaja as well as the geometrical creations of David Watkins or the golden bracelet discs by Okinari Kurokawa. The Catalan Massana School of Joaquim Capdevila and Ramon Puig Cuyas with their colorful, narrative style; Helfried Kodré’s brooches and ring sculptures as a three-dimensional, spatially-extended implementation of geometry; Michael Becker’s clear, architectonic language of form; or the works with moving surfaces by Yasuki Hiramatsu represent different expressions of contemporary jewelry work. The doors stand wide open to the up-and-coming generation of craftsmen – one of the gallery owner’s favorite tasks is to scout out young talent such as Miriam Hiller or Isabell Schaupp. Features 60 artists including Gijs Bakker, Anna Heindl, Miriam Hiller, Helfried Kodré, Elisabeth J. Defner, Michael Becker, Anneliese Planteydt, Francesco Pavan, David Watkins, Stefano Marchetti, Daniel Kruger, Annamaria Zanella, Giovanni Corvaja, Jacqueline Ryan, Renzo Pasquale. Text in English & German.

Bjørn Ransve (b. in 1944) is one of the most important contemporary Norwegian artists. Since the onset of late Modernism, he has played a crucial role in shaping painting in Scandinavia and today his works are represented in all important museums there. In the rest of Europe and the US, he is regarded as an insider tip for collectors. A particularly striking aspect of Ransve’s work is the constant shift between the representational and abstraction – often in parallel. In addition, he is a consummate master of traditional oil-painting techniques – working the medium in anything from small formats to canvases 15 metres across. His 1960s fragmented bodies, his searching studies of animal cadavers, the motifs he has borrowed from the history of art and his enigmatically demonic visions often look aggressive and distorted yet are sensitively executed – an ambivalence that informs Ransve’s oeuvre and is perhaps most radically expressed in works in which the representational clashes with abstraction. This book provides a survey of Ransve’s impressive painterly oeuvre. The accompanying text investigates the changing and recurrent groups of motifs and places the works in their art historical context. Since each page of the book has been designed individually in close collaboration between Ransve and the graphic artist and book designer Silke Nalbach, Bjørn Ransve’s development as an artist can be traced in a way that is particularly illuminating. Text in English with German translations.

Very rarely does a jewelry artist manage to find new pictorial worlds of such a personal nature during the course of their creative work so freely and unencumbered as Daniel Kruger (born 1951, South Africa). His experiments with the most diverse materials, decoration, forms and structures testify to an exuberant creativity for which he was honored with the renowned Herbert Hoffmann Award for Art Jewellery in 1987 and 2005. Daniel Kruger uses found objects of every kind, or quotes historical forms and decoration. The unusual combinations of materials as well as new interpretations of techniques used in handcraft and textile work unexpectedly, yet invariably, lend his jewelry pieces new perspectives and aesthetic pleasure as well as a decidedly erotic quality, as he himself says. The works illustrate Daniel Kruger’s curiosity with unconventional techniques and materials; they are also an expression of his awareness of nature and artificiality, history and tales, tradition and the present: sometimes ironic, at times restrained, but frequently also opulent and sensual.

Text in English and German.

As used in German, the French word “collier” denotes a particularly valuable form of neck jewelry – it represents a promise and betokens dignity to the woman wearing it. This is the sense in which Dorothea Prühl lays claim to the term for her jewelry. Spaciously gestural, Dorothea Prühl takes full advantage of the powers of persuasion inherent in what is only seemingly a simple form. Her feeling for form, schooled as it is on the Classic moderns, is based on a sculptural idea and takes proportion and scale into account. Concentration on essentials, empathy in the extreme and vigorous plasticity are the distinguishing features of her works. They are the critically reflected expression of an entirely subjective artistic agenda. More or less recognizable, the object visualized contains no subliminal messages: hence it permits no interpretations containing extrinsic references. These are works that are exactly what they purport to be. They are not ambivalent. There is no narration, none at all. Text in English & German.

In the glass art of Franz Xaver Höller (b. 1950) artisanal techniques rich in tradition, such as cutting and engraving, collide with modern forms. Vibrantly sculptural bodies engraved on their surface with fine lines, the drawing of which generates impressive depth via incidental light, make up the majority of the vessels and objects that he has created over the last thirty-five years. Sharp edges protrude and challenge the conception of a harmonious form.

This publication illustrates all stages of Höller’s development, drawing the view to the artist’s multi-variant language of forms. Large-format details reveal the beauty and precision of the meticulous workmanship. Accomplished authors expound sources of inspiration as well as turning points in creativity, while preliminary sketches afford insights into the developmental process of his works.

Text in English and German.

Gabriela Koschatzky-Elias writes absorbingly on the life and work of Fritz Maierhofer, one of the most important contemporary Austrian jewelry artists, whose international career took off in late-1960s London. Under the sway of that throbbing city, he had arrived at a conception of jewelry and a language of forms that were distinctively his own. Maierhofer places jewelry on an equal footing with painting, sculpture and architecture. What is crucial to him is the artistic intention rather than the market value of the materials used. Maierhofer keeps coming up with new statements – using acrylic glass and precious metals in the 1970s, pewter and gold in the 1980s and, in the 1990s, aluminium, steel and computer technology while his most recent work features the new material CORIAN®.

A new publication in our art jewelry series: the first comprehensive monograph surveying Fritz Maierhofer’s work from the 1960s to the present. With superlative color illustrations and texts by a group of distinguished specialists in the field (including Ralph Turner and Graziella Folchini Grassetto).

Text in German and English.

One hundred masterpieces of European art and arts and crafts of the eighteenth century form a panorama of innovation, design and expert realisation. In their sumptuous design, the porcelain, furniture, bronzes and silver objects are all miracles of the luxury craftsmanship found in court art. Such sophisticated design was the driving force behind the quickly successive styles of classicism, naturalism and the exotic design of the Rococo period.

André-Charles Boulle, Jakob Philipp Hackert, Johann Joachim Kaendler, Alexandre-Jean Oppenordt and Jean-Baptiste François Pater are just some of the renowned artists featured in this catalogue. The artworks are opulently presented, interpreted in detail and arranged according to context. Thus the colourful image of a great era in art emerges, one that relied on creative energy and the power of the imagination.

In 1948, Gilbert Portanier, a painter, discovered clay as a material to work with at Vallauris, the ceramics centre in the south of France. There he developed his unique style in the medium. What is so significant about his early work is his mastery of drawing on pottery. In the early years, Portanier “drew” with the brush on his pieces mainly Arcadian genre scenes inspired by Greco-Roman antiquity. On the look-out for new color combinations, color textures and color compositions, however, Portanier gradually distanced himself from drawing and switched to free painting on ceramics. “Every one of his pieces belongs in a museum,” thus Picasso commenting on Gilbert Portanier’s “painterly ceramics”. And indeed Portanier, like no other, conjures colorful, surrealist abstract-figurative paintings on the ceramics he has designed. In his pieces, the “Mediterranean delight” in representing and communicating comes into its own.

The inexhaustible riches of Portanier’s teeming imagination are unique in the international ceramics scene, a status that has been justly rewarded with numerous international prizes and awards and is now being showcased in this comprehensive monograph.

With Impulses, the Gold and Silversmith’s Craft Trust in Schwäbisch Gmünd celebrates its thirtieth anniversary. The book documents the Trust’s extensive achievements and shows highlights from publications, workshops and exhibitions. The main focus lies on the detailed presentation of the sixteen goldsmiths in residence. In 1989 the Trust was the very first German institution to appoint a City Goldsmith and continued to do so every two years. Famous artists like Max Fröhlich, Norman Weber and Deganit Stern Shocken are among the award winners. The outstanding setup of the exemplary works allows new perspectives on the diverse artistic expressions in gold and silver. Text in English and German. Contents: Prologue; TimeSignals; Lectures; Competitions; Exhibitions; Black Box; Karfunkelschein; Workshops; Meetings; Hammerclub; die Stadtgoldschmiede; Max Fröhlich; Nikolaus Kirchner; Johann Müllerperth; Klaus Dieter Eichler; Marianne Schliwinski; Walter Storr; Deganit Stern Schocken; Berthold Hoffmann; Bettina Menrad-Maier; Brigitte Moser; Ulrike Knab; Petra Dömling; Norman Weber; Peter Bauhuis; Paul de Vries; Simone ten Hompel.

2018 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the first international symposium of silver jewelry Jablonec ’68. Thanks to the liberalization endeavours as part of the ‘Prague Spring’, European jewelry artists from East and West came together for a ‘summit’ at the invitation of the Czech artists’ association in Jablonec, northern Bohemia. On the guest list were such renowned names as Anton Cepka, Hermann Junger and Bruno Martinazzi – artists celebrated today as the founders of studio jewelry. The jewelry pieces that developed at that time have remained in the Muzeum skla a bizuterie in Jablonec nad Nisou and to this day have lost nothing of their exceptional and pioneering aura. This publication – which contains a reprint of the original catalogue from 1968 – makes these pieces accessible to a wider audience for the very first time. A document that in a wholly authentic way allows the reader to experience this unique historical moment in the history of the international studio jewelry scene.

Text in English and German.

Accompanies the exhibition at Die Neue Sammlung The Design Museum, Munich (DE), 10 March-3 June 2018.

Happenstance and gesture play a central role in the creative work of the ceramicist Johannes Nagel (b. 1979). His objects, which are orientated towards traditional ideas of vessels but are also freely composed, examine the associations between form and idea. Using work techniques such as burrowing into sand to form negative figurations for casting, he successfully performs his work directly and manually, lending the process of searching a tangible presence.

The publication focuses on Nagel’s oeuvre from the last four years. Earlier work groups are also presented as highlights. The collector Jörg Johnen and the philosopher Marcel René Marburger set Nagel’s work in relation to artistic tendencies of the twentieth century and shine a light on the intellectual-historical background of the gestural as an intermediary between the power of imagination and its manifestation in an object.

Text in English and German.

In Testament Kadri Mälk leaves more than just the legacy of her prodigious artistic output of recent years. Alongside impressive new jewelry pieces and breathtaking detailed photographs, the publication conveys an emotional creative aspiration. The jewelry artist’s works are not merely decoration; they teem with expression. The unusual format and creative photography transform the book into an experience. What at first are regarded as accents of color are assigned new values in their detail; structures, materials and cuts are visible and at once experienceable. Nature photography and sketched models add further levels of contemplation and understanding, immersing the reader fully in the wild and poetic dark world of Estonian art jewelry.

Text in English and Estonian.

Kokon is the term Doerthe Fuchs uses to define a group of pieces of jewelry which are complete in themselves yet surprisingly draw the viewer’s eye inwards. Exquisitely subtle and delicate, they nonetheless achieve holistic stability. The “cocoon” form is constantly present and recognizable. With her project Kokon Doerthe Fuchs succeeds in uniting opposite extremes. The outcome is amazement. Even the materials she uses effortlessly overcome all sources of potential friction: coarse stone is linked with fine configurations of silver; mundane objects are veiled in the elegance of gold. This seeming incongruence is not unattractive, however; on the contrary, it is the linking factor of the “cocoon”. It encloses what otherwise would not belong together to create a new unity. A text by Frenec Jádi introduces the book, capturing in words the astonishing events taking place when these objects are seen. Numerous color illustrations showcase this group of works in all its beauty.

Text in English & German.

There are many ways to perceive and interpret contemporary craft objects – for instance, as works of representational art in materials like ceramics, glass, textile, metal or wood, or as functional, handmade everyday objects. In this publication, the editors have invited different voices in craft theory to investigate the perception of contemporary craft as a particular discourse and aesthetic vocabulary. According to the editors, contemporary crafts can benefit from being discussed as representations of reality that do not rely on the concept of autonomy. As such, neither do they rely on the conventional dualism between aesthetic objects and everyday things. The authors investigate the possibility to perceive craft objects from perspectives that relate to the aesthetic tradition of materialism.

Beginning with the renaissance of gemstones in jewelry design since the 1970s, Ute Eitzenhöfer, Theo Smeets, Lothar Brügel (ret. 2014) and Eva-Maria Kollischan (since 2014) successfully established the Hochschule Trier in Idar-Oberstein as a creative European jewelry centre. To mark the exhibition in the Stadtmusem Simeonstift in Trier on thirty years of the Gemstone and Jewellery Department, the publication shows an exciting selection of works from the last ten years. Works in creative design and photography accompany diverse approaches that exemplify the contemporary use of a reputedly ‘outmoded’ raw material. In exploring the aesthetic characteristics of the material and the experimental confrontation with its physical qualities, the gemstone’s potential for design comes entirely into its own. Within current discourse it comments ironically, on the one hand, on the unilateral societal ascription as a luxury item; on the other, it functions as a charming and noble object of nature.

Text in English and German.

Petra Zimmermann occupies a unique position among emerging contemporary jewelry artists: she shares their exciting approach to the subject of jewelry and the quotable adoption of the pop culture label for defining the auteur jewelry concept in which she succeeds, this time through historical reference. The artist draws on past encounters with costume jewelry from the previous century for her rings, bracelets and brooches. Comprised of bright, colorful synthetic forms, these objects receive a framework in which their artificial appearance contrasts to the dusty splendour of the historic costume jewelry. Beguiling pieces of jewelry emerge, which combine the present fascination for glamour with an element of progression, thus referencing the costume jewelry as an essential component in the production and construction of glamour in the portrait photography of the Hollywood diva. In her latest series of works, the artist uses mass media images of models, floral motifs, architecture and design objects which broaden her scope of cultural and social interpretations. Thus behind the visual opulence of her work, she succeeds in handling relevant aesthetic and social themes in her pieces; relevant for a generation that no longer struggles against traditional conventions, but that negotiates much more in an increasingly complex environment in the search for personal and historical coherence.

Petra Zimmermann is one of the most ambitious artists in contemporary jewelry. This book provides the first overview of her fascinating and exciting creative jewelry works with sumptuous images and scholarly articles.

The Norwegian painter Bjørn Ransve (b. 1944) is one of the best-known contemporary Scandinavian artists. Very few painters indeed express themselves so brilliantly in two dimensions on a sheet of paper, thematically, technically and formally. His work is a dialog that embraces art history enthusiastically, one that is deeply rooted in art history yet articulates something new and relevant to our times. While still a student, he began to do figurative drawings, switching to abstraction before ultimately returning to the figurative although he never returns to precisely where he left off. Instead he is continually blending in new elements he has seen and recognized along the way. Consequently, his most recent work represents a sophisticated synthesis of elements from worlds which at first might seem virtually irreconcilable.

This volume presents Bjørn Ransve’s drawings from all periods of his work. In themselves they provide a survey of his oeuvre as a whole since drawings always accompany his paintings and prints – not merely as sketches or designs but as autonomous works of art in their own right, with both familiar and unfamiliar motifs and techniques. Moreover, the book provides a comprehensive text on Bjørn Ransve’s drawings, with the various groups of motifs studied in detail – when they appear and in what sequence and how they comment on each other – and fits them into the art historical context. The first presentation and a superlative representation of the drawings by the best-known contemporary Norwegian artist. Bjørn Ransve’s work is on the brink of being discovered internationally. With his delicate yet powerful drawings, Bjørn Ransve leaves us with fascinating and disturbing impressions of aspects of perception and the phenomenon itself.

The Norwegian painter Bjørn Ransve (b. 1944) is one of the best-known contemporary Scandinavian artists. Very few painters indeed express themselves so brilliantly in two dimensions, thematically, technically and formally.

The third volume of the catalogue raisonné is devoted to Ransve’s graphic oeuvre: in over 1,300 illustrations it documents prints and multiples, created from the 1960s to 2013. This book is not only an indispensable standard reference for all scholars, art dealers and collectors, it also provides insights in the complex interrelations between prints, paintings and drawings in Ransve’s artistic work. The accompanying text by Lars Eisenlöffel investigates the changing and recurrent groups of motifs and places the works in their art historical context. Since each page of the book has been designed individually in close collaboration between Ransve and the graphic artist and book designer Silke Nalbach, Bjørn Ransve’s development as an artist can be traced in a way that is particularly illuminating.

For Red X Thread, the gold- and silversmith and designer Franz Bette (b. 1941) developed a new body of work which reflected his experiences in Asia. For this, he incorporated new elements to his artistic approach, extending his Western-influenced vocabulary of steel, silver, gold and plastic by adding materials with Asian connotations, such as porcelain, paper, bamboo, wood and textile. He works with these materials, aware of their tradition and meaning in Asian culture. Many new impulses have led Franz Bette to special formulations in his poetic language, to organic ephemerality instead of geometric constructions. His jewellery shifts between drawing and sculpture, far removed from all monumentality.

The exhibition Red X Thread: Franz Bette – Jewellery, ALIEN Art, Kaohsiung (TW) runs from 15 February 2019 – 23 June 2019.

Text in English, Chinese and German.

Alongside artistically experimental aspects of education, the ThinkingJewellery ‘trademark’ stands as a contextual leitmotif throughout the gemstones and jewelry study programme at Trier University/Idar-Oberstein campus. The aims of ThinkingJewellery comprise scientifically oriented research as well as discourse on the historical and societal interconnection of jewelry. Highlights are the ThinkingJewellery symposia, which are now accompanied by a series of periodicals. The new series discusses contributions to a contemporary theory of jewelry beyond disciplinary boundaries or typical categories. The texts envisioned for ThinkingJewellery 2 include ‘On the Cultural History of the Gemstone’, ‘Goethe on Colour’ and ‘Cold Shine – Empty Glamour, on Jeff Koons’s Celebration Series’, which are based on lectures from the 2017 symposium.

The Norwegian Torbjørn Kvasbø (b. 1953) is considered a leading figure in the field of contemporary ceramic art. He exhibits regularly in Asia, Europe and the US and achieved a unique status as an artist and pioneer, and also as a teacher with widespread influence having been actively engaged in restructuring the art schools where he taught. The art historian Jorunn Veiteberg analyzes in this publication Kvasbø’s works from 1977 to the present day. Most critics have described his objects as forms inspired by nature, by lava eruptions or landscapes. Veiteberg is critical of this and sees them more as bodily expressions. Kerstin Wickmann, design historian and former professor at Konstfack in Stockholm, discusses Kvasbø’s twelve years as teacher in Stockholm and his influence on his students and the educational system.

Torbjørn Kvasbø’s work is represented in numerous international museums and private collections, such as the National Museum, Stockholm/SE, Designmuseum Danmark, Copenhagen/DK, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo/NO, Auckland Institute and Museum/NZ, Museum of Modern Ceramic Art, Gifu Ceramics-Park Mino, Gifu/JP, World Ceramic Exposition/KOR, Daum Museum of Contemporary Art, Sedalia MO/US.

Text in English, Swedish & Norwegian.