Ornament Magazine

VOL35.5 2012

Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.

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PRODUCTION PIN #4 of sterling silver; 1.9 x 2.5 x 1.9 centimeters, designed 1944, in production 1946–57. In 1948, De Patta participated in the group exhibition Modern Jewelry Under Fifty Dollars at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where she showed nine rings and four pins from her production line. Although De Patta's production line— named Designs Contemporary—was well received by museums and gallery dealers, the line was not as profitable as anticipated and De Patta and husband decided to discontinue it in 1957. essence of Moholy-Nagy's statement when she began to set beach pebbles and stones in her more casual brooches, which she endearingly referred to as "sweater jewelry." De Patta felt the beach pebbles should appear free, as she found them in nature, and should not be encased in a metal bezel. To structurally allow the pebble to float in space, De Patta drilled a slot in the back of the stone and filled it with epoxy as a means to attach it from the backside to an unseen metal support. Hence, from the face of the pebble a floating illusion is maintained. The year 1941 also proved to be a volatile one for De Patta's personal life and living situation. De Patta had met Eugene Bielawski, an industrial designer and instructor at the School of Design, and there was likely some connection between them. When Margaret returned to San Francisco she and Samuel De Patta decided to divorce. Following the divorce, De Patta put into practice her design training and her natural affinity toward architecture when she resolved to start a new beginning by renovating the craftsman-style house she and Samuel had purchased together in 1936. In De Patta's deft hands, the woodsy bungalow on a hilltop in San Francisco underwent a complete transformation, re-emerging as an International-style concrete and glass-block residence. For the interior, De Patta designed all the furnishings and had them custom-made, including the furniture, draperies and upholstery. In totality, exterior and interior, the house paid homage to the Bauhaus ideologies of well- designed objects existing within a beautifully designed space to create an appealing, fully functioning and organic whole. The postwar years brought notoriety, success, fame, failure, and disappointment to De Patta in varying degrees. What can be gleaned from factual information contained in the catalog Timeline is the following: 1. De Patta's jewelry was featured in the most important high profile museum exhibitions during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s including Craftsmanship in a Changing World in 1956 (Museum of Contemporary Crafts; predecessor to the Museum 37 ORNAMENT 35.5.2012

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