3 modern artists' jewelry you didn’t know existed

Alexander Calder, Salvador Dalí & Pablo Picasso knew how to adorn

Alexander Calder made jewelry for Georgia O’Keefe. Picasso’s goldsmith? His dentist! Dalí built a brooch that beats like a heart.

We know them as our fave modern artists - but did you know they also made ~wearable~ art? Today we’re taking a look into 3 modern artists’ forgotten history as jewelers.

I was scrolling Instagram and came across this post that I haven’t stopped thinking about - Alexander Calder’s sculptural earrings that I currently have 12 open tabs on Etsy trying to find (keep reading - I’ve made progress).

Alexander Calder sketches and sales logs for earrings, shared by @by___sp. I was struck by how so unassuming yet beautiful they were - sculptural in the way that Agmes and Sophie Buhai are doing it today.

Artists have been adorning the extremities of the masses since ancient times. India mined diamonds in 300 BCE! Chinese women wore blue stones as the og status symbol in 5000 BCE. The Romans wore rings to prevent poisoning obviously.

Modern artists making jewelry is a period in history that’s somewhat overlooked. After I saw this post on Calder, I went down the rabbit hole - what other famous modern artists made jewelry they’re not really famous for? And can I buy something like it?

3 modern artists & their take on jewelry that no one talks about:

1. Alexander Calder’s handmade earrings

Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976) is famous for inventing the mobile (his bestie Marcel DuChamp coined the name for it) but most people forget about his far less famous foray - earrings, necklaces & brooches.

If you think about it - it makes perfect sense he was good at earrings. They are quite literally mini mobiles - gilded tiny jewels suspended in air.

Alexander Calder c. 1930 in his Paris studio hand hammering his latest jewels. speed round rose facts🌹 1. Calder actually went by Sandy by his family and friends 2. Was born in Lawnton Pennsylvania into a family of artists and studied to become an engineer. 3. When he came back from WWII, he moved to Paris and created a miniature circus - Cirque Calder - all powered by his hands. It set the stage for his kinetic work, the guy could make it MOVE.

The craft: Unlike the other modern artists on this list - Dalí and Picasso - Calder never partnered with a commercial brand to make his jewels. He crafted them with his own little Calder hands. He was an engineer from Pennsylvania - he was made for this.

One of my favorite thing about his jewelry is how scrappy and unpretentious - yet undeniably beautiful - it is. The geometric patterns are eye catching. My mom’s a Latin teacher and I remember this one old book she had of Greek and Roman coin jewelry - it seems like Calder was influenced by some of that same geometric metal work of the Ancient Greek.

Each piece was shaped and coiled from a single piece of wire or sheet metal. He literally traveled with pliers in his pocket as he went from dinner party to dinner party.

There’s a great story about how Calder would be dining at a friend’s apartment and you’d be mid-bite of your soup when he’d whip out his trusty pliers and sheet metal. A twist and coil of the hand later, you had a whole new necklace - your name etched into it and everything. All by the third course! That’s service.

He made over 1800 pieces of jewelry - his first ever work was for his little sister’s dolls. My boss Somsack also started his design career with his little sister’s cabbage patch dolls. Is there a post on dolls and designers in our future?!

Calder started by making jewelry as gifts - everyone from his mother to the inimitable Peggy Guggenheim (More on Peggy soon. The woman is a legend. She’s dead and I’m still scared of her).

He made everything with the specific person in mind - I love how each piece adds such intrigue to their look…if not a bit of a functional problem. How do you DO anything in that?! Mary Rockefeller apparently said the necklace she received from Calder required “some extra elbow room.” Obsessed.

Peggy Guggenheim, Georgia O’Keefe, and Simone de Beauvoir in Calder creations. Imagining Peggy at a 1930s nyc dinner party trying to take a bite of her French vegetable ragout without the earrings getting in the way?! how do you do anything in those things?! it’s so impractical! I love it!

Channel your inner Calder & get these:

• Studio Mantel’s one-of-a-kind sculptural cuffs and earrings

• My friend Elissa of Movie Pudding just snagged this Etsy find, reminiscent of the “OK” Brooch Calder made for Georgia O’Keefe (or you can get this replica from her museum)

• Chanluu’s Gala Cresent earrings from my friend Tessa’s line

2. Salvador Dalí’s Surrealist Treasures

Forget Persistence of Time, what about a ruby-encrusted heart brooch that beats like …an actual heart? Yes! Our strange friend Dalí has got you.

He designed 39 pieces of surrealist jewelry between 1941 and 1970 - and they are somewhat an extension of his Surrealist manifesto - aka wow are they crazy.

Dalí and Ultra Violet at St. Regis in NYC - his future goldsmith Carolos Alemany had a workshop there. One thing about Dali is if you want weird - he won’t let you down. Once he showed up to a party with his wife Gala dressed the LINDBERGH BABY and his kidnapper. He took that one a step too far - had to apologize after.

Our boy Dalí was not just an artist - he was a full-on brand. One of the first to turn his work into a commercial empire - licensing everything from movies to fashion to lobsters on dinner plates.

His jewelry is proof - surrealism wasn’t just something to LOOK at, it was something to WEAR. OG influencer.

By the 1940s, Dalí was a full-blown brand. He moved to the US to escape WWII and Americans LOVED him - partnering with names like Elsa Schiaparelli and Alfred Hitchcock on commercial work ($$$!). Andre Breton, the father of surrealism & Dalí’s frenemy, coined Dalí “Avida Dollars” (eager for dollars). Ouch.

The craft: Dalí was the boring midtown finance boy’s delight - rich men were begging to bankroll him (2025 version = whatever is happening in Fidi’s WSA building).

His jewelry endeavor was no exception - it was funded by a wealthy businessman and executed by a world-class jeweler. Dalí thought of his jewelry as an extension of his artwork - “painting” - but in rubies emeralds and diamonds (just a *little* more expensive than Blick oil paints).

And yes his pieces were literally dripping in jewels. Three crazy examples -

1. Ruby Lips Brooch 2. Eye of Time 3. Beating Heart Brooch

1. The Ruby Lips Brooch (1949) – pavé rubies and pearl teeth inspired by his obsession Mae West’s lips (also famously immortalized in his Mae West Lips Sofa)

2. The Eye of Time (1949) – an eye that works like a watch! Diamond-encrusted eyelid, gold eyelashes, & a blue enamel “iris” with a tiny clock face that actually ticks. Dalí LOVED eyes (King Tutt’s tomb discovery in 1922 caused an Egyptian revival in jewelry - this Eye of Time is no exception)

3. The Beating Heart Brooch (1953) – Dalí drama at his finest. An anatomical heart brooch - with arteries and veins sculpted from rubies, diamonds, and gold. Dalí didn’t stop there. It has a pulsing heartbeat (eeek!) and yes it is still alive, tucked away at the Dalí Theatre Museum in Spain (has anyone visited?).

Dalí designed his jewelry as high-art - it wasn’t meant to be casually worn. I couldn’t find any photos of Dalí jewels worn in the wild - but the guess is the surrealist motifs like lips, eyes, heart are in honor of his wife Gala (who he worshipped near religiously). Here is the couple at one of their Surrealist dinner parties. Apparently Gala dressed like a unicorn reclined in bed & stayed like that the entire night (I promise).

If Dalí did jewelry shopping…

(Ok he can’t - so I texted my friend Sarah, art historian / social manager of MoMa PS1, instead). She sent links in 20 seconds:

1. This lobster brooch "reminiscent of both Dalí’s lobster telephone and his Elsa schiaparelli’s 1937 evening gown. You can’t really do a surrealist accessory collection without a lobster!”

2. An angelic pin w/ a surrealist spirit - “Niki self-funded her life’s work “Il Giardino dei Tarocchi,” a sculpture park in the hills of the italian countryside by making small mass-producible objects (like this pin!)”

3. A Victorian eye Brooch - so very Dali.

Etsy gold. Follow Sarah for more of her unusual finds - her Instagram is a treasure trove.

3. Picasso’s Unexpected Jewelry Collabs (including one with his dentist?)

Last up. Pablo! I knew his daughter Paloma had become a famous jewelry designer at Tiffany’s, so I wasn’t surprised that she learned from the best.

Where I was surprised?! His approach to making it - it was unexpected and deeply personal. Plus he had so. many. fun. collabs. Spoiler alert one was with…his dentist? Pablo, so funny!

Throughout his life, Picasso made jewelry for the women he loved. Here he is c. 1957 with one of his last muses Jacqueline Roque, adjusting the necklace he gifted her. I love how raw and fossil-like it is.

Jewelry was Picasso’s love language. Since as early as 1916, Picasso was stringing together necklaces of shells, teeth, and rocks and bestowing them upon his lovers. And he had A LOT of lovers. How chic.

A Picasso “found-objects” creation - the Owl Necklace c. 1948 crafted with metal, bones, and stone beads. He made this necklace in collaboration with Fraçoise Gilot, one of his great loves and mother to his children. P.S. fun piece on Picasso’s love for owls via Austin Kleon here.

The craft: His creations were deeply personal - most of them never meant to be sold - and therefore pretty secret to the rest of the art world.

He started with gifts and tributes to his various partners like Dora Maar and Francois Gilot (her autobiography Life With Picasso is next up on my reading list) - but my favorite examples are his unexpected collabs.

1940s - the Vallauris Collection

After WWII, Picasso moved to Vallauris and worked with artisans at Madoura Pottery to create little clay medallions of fauns, bearded men, and female figures. They are so cute! And seems like they’ve been sold on 1st Dibs? Anyone have an extra 6k?

I can’t with all of Picasso’s cute faces. Reminds me of the pottery my dad used to make - he had this reoccurring character he’d hand-build into ceramic plates. Bill actually just bought another kiln on Facebook marketplace - will keep you posted on his creations.

Early 1950s - the ~unexpected~ dentist collab

Ok I love this. During a routine dental visit, Picasso realized his dentist was an unsung goldsmith - all those gold teeth, crowns, and bridges he made?! Genius! A business partnership was formed.

Picasso collaborated with his dentist Dr. Chatagnier to cast medallions and pendants he gifted to his then-wife Françoise Gilot and their two kids Claude and Paloma. Each one is so special and one-of-a-kind. Probably my favorite pieces yet.

Silver Sun Pendant, Silver Claude Pendant, and Silver Satyr Pendant - cast in the South of France with help of Dr. Chatagnier. Makes you think about your dentist differently, no?

Late 1950s - the François Hugo Collaboration

Apparently Picasso got sick of asking Dr. Chataigner to melt gold for him so he went to the pros. In the 1950s, Picasso worked with the master goldsmith François Hugo to translate his ceramic faces into gold.

This was his only “commercial” collab - make in a super limited run. It is probably the most collectible and viewable today. Anyone in St. Moritz to see this little guy on display?

I was so glad to learn the Hugo workshop is still in operation today - check out their Instagram. It’s full of archival images and new designs. Great listen on the atelier’s history here.

Picasso-approved pieces:

1. These shell amulets from Maná remind me of Picasso’s found-objects era

2. If I found myself in unexpected wealth - I’d commission a ring from Hocerat - all handmade in NYC. The abstract faces remind me of Picasso’s own.

3. A Somstack rec - handcrafted metals from HW studios. If Heath told me he collabed with his dentist, I wouldn’t be surprised!

Art x jewelry speed round

• To know: Reading Isabella Stewart Gardner’s biography (it is incred) and came across this fact - until the 1900s, pearls were more expensive than diamonds - it used to take thousands of oysters to find a single pearl. Isabella Stewart Garder’s portrait famously shows her with a string of them (status symbol alert).

• To do: My friend Alice our Alex Mill women’s designer is taking a jewelry class on the Upper East Side - I want in, anyone care to join me? Check it out here.

• To follow: one of my fave jewelry accounts - @anakhouri - shares her current designs as well as archival imagery & little-known facts like this post of Georgia O’Keefe from 1931

• To gift: an Anni Albers make-your-own-jewelry kits is a perfect gift (or self gift) idea for a crafty friend. Our design team brought a kit back from London.

First sub - done! What other topics are you interested in that we should explore?! Drop ideas / comments / questions below - and keep the convo going in our little art group chat.

xr