Beschreibung:

An architectural Margaret De Patta brooch Print Sterling silver with quartz cabochon. Stamped ''sterling'' and signed with the artist's cipher verso, 2.5'' L x 1.5" W x .5'' D, 28.6 grams, est: $5000/7000 *Price Realized: $4,305.00 Note: Margaret De Patta was an important contributor to not only the American studio jewelry movement but to the Modern, Constructivism and Bauhaus movements as well; elements of each are imbued into her jewelry. While shopping for her wedding ring in 1929, De Patta was frustrated to find that no one was making jewelry with a Modernist aesthetic and decided to go into the field herself. A student in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in San Diego, the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (now the San Francisco Art Institute) and at the Art Students League in New York, De Patta was largely self-taught in jewelry making but was a student of artisan Armen Hairenian and of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy at the Institute of Design in Chicago. She wanted her unique Bauhaus and Constructivism-influenced designs to be accessible to everyone as wearable art. Though not well known during her lifetime, her work was ahead of its time and has recently gained more recognition thanks to a recent exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California as well as a revived interest in the Mid-Century Modern movement. Her sophisticated approach to the use of light, structure and material is especially evident in this brooch, which features a see-through quartz cabochon that just slightly bends and distorts whatever is underneath, as well as the curving silver lines and rigid squares of silver and black stone elements which evokes a Bauhaus structure. Condition: Overall good condition with light scratches and oxidation commensurate with age and wear.