Schools such as Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina and Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan that reaped the benefits of these enlightened minds from Europe, forever changed the way crafts were taught and formidably impacted the American crafts movement.

Harry Bertoia, necklace, gold, 9” x 8-1/2”.

Courtesy of Mark McDonald, 555 Warren St., Hudson, New York, photograph by Bill Hibbs.

 In 1942 The American Craftsmen’s Cooperative Council was founded and the magazine Craft Horizons began publication. In 1943 the American Craftsmen’s Educational Council, Inc. was inaugurated. Much of the impetus to organize American craftsmen emanated from the actions of one very influential person, Mrs. Vanderbilt Webb, a wealthy copper heiress who was moved by the hardships she witnessed during the Great Depression to do something to strengthen the market for crafts in the United States and later throughout the world.

Much credit is due metalsmith/jeweler Margret Craver for her tireless work setting up hospital service programs sponsored by Handy and Harman (a metals refining company) at each of the Army's thirteen commands to rehabilitate veterans through wire working. After the war (from 1947 - 1951) Craver was responsible for workshops (also funded by Handy and Harman), taught by experienced metalsmiths from Europe, to train American teachers in the the knowledge and techniques of the craft of silversmithing.  These workshops played a vital role in the expansion of metals programs at American colleges and universities--many attendees became influential teachers who set up long lasting, seminal metalsmithing departments at their respective schools.

The progressive Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota followed with an exhibit in 1948 titled Modern Jewelry Under Fifty Dollars. The work of thirty-two innovative artist/jewelers was included and each piece was priced under fifty dollars. Many of the participants of this exhibit had been producing modernist jewelry and metalwork since the 1930s and early 1940s—Margaret De Patta, Sam Kramer, Paul Lobel, Art Smith, Harry Bertoia, Philip Morton, and Adda Husted-Andersen were among them.

Harry Bertoia, brooch, sterling silver. 4-1/2” x 3”.

Courtesy of Mark McDonald, 555 Warren St., Hudson,New York, photograph by Bill Hibbs.

Courtesy of Mark McDonald, 555 Warren St., Hudson, New York, photograph by Bill Hibbs.

Some of the exhibitors at the 1955 Walker exhibit included Adda Husted-Andersen, Mildred Ball, Harry Bertoia, Eleanor Caldwell, Betty Cooke, Robert Dhaemers, Virginia Dudley, Robert and Audrey Engstrom, Sam Kramer, Mary Kretsinger, Philip Morton, Caroline Rosene, Earl Pardon, Miriam Smith Peck, Coralyn Pence, Barney M. Reid, merry renk, Florence Resnikoff, Ruth Roach, George K. Salo, Christian Schmidt, Pearl Shecter, Byron Wilson, and Bob Winston.

Sam Kramer, pendant, sterling silver, moonstone, 3-1/2” x 2-1/4”.

Collection of Jill Crawford, photograph by Shirley Byrne.

The 1959 Walker Art Center exhibit on paper contained photographs of the work of eighty-eight jewelers but was double the size of the 1955 issue of Design Quarterly. Some of the exhibitors included Mildred Ball, Francis Holmes Boothby, Irena Brynner, Eleanor Caldwell, Betty Cooke, Margaret De Patta, Robert Dhaemers, Virginia Dudley, Alma Eikerman, Robert and Audrey Engstrom, Elsa Freund, Richard Gompf, Clifford Herrold, Michael Jerry, Sam Kramer, Earl Krentzin, Mary Kretsinger, John Paul Miller, Philip Morton, Ronald Hayes Pearson, Ruth Penington, Miriam Smith Peck, John Prip, merry renk, Svetozar and Ruth Radakovich, Florence Resnikoff, Walter Rhodes, Ruth Roach, Pearl Shecter, Nancy Sherwood, Mary Schimpff, Christian Schmidt, Byron Wilson, and Bob Winston.

By the mid-1940s there was an increased number of metalsmiths living and working in the United States. Greenwich Village and other Bohemian quarters of New York City became strongholds for jewelers who had either been educated at art and design schools or were self-taught. Conditions in the United States after World War II were “ripe” for the ensuing craft revival. Returning GI’s, many who had been trained during the war as mechanics, machinists, or engineers found that they could creatively transfer these skills into metalworking. Under the GI bill, veterans had free access to training programs in metals available at several universities, museum schools, and craft centers. Crafts offered a new “way of life”—a less stressful, hands-on life style after the dehumanizing traumas of the war years.

Some of the more well-known modernist jewelers working in and close to Greenwich Village in the 1940s and early 1950s were Bob and Esta Blood, Arthur King, Sam Kramer, Idella La Vista, Ed Levin, Paul Lobel, Frank Miraglia, Frank Rebajes, George Salo, Art Smith, Henry Steig, Bill Tendler, Paul Voltaire, Ed Wiener, and Armand Winfield.

Sam Kramer, framed sash buckle with detachable brooch, 20-1/5” high x 9-5/8” wide (overall), frame and background: rosewood, patinated copper, sculpture/buckle: 6-1/4” high x 4” wide, sterling silver, copper, jade, citrine.

Collection of Ken Dukoff, The Dukoff Collection, www.thedukoffcollection.com

Photograph by Paul J. Toussaint.

Bob and Esta Blood, necklace, sterling and ebony, 15” (circumference).

Collection of Munir Meghji, photograph by Munir Meghji.

…The year 1964, will, we believe, be another landmark in the world history of the crafts—a beginning of great things. If the contemplated World Association of Craftsmen becomes a reality as the result of action on the part of the delegates to the First World Congress of Craftsmen, a wonderful future is opened to the craftsmen of the world. The problems will be many and complicated, for the conception of craftsmanship differs widely in many areas. This solution will come by trail and error, by patience over the years and constant adherence to the ultimate goal.

The basic desires of all will be the same as they have been in the U.S.—to provide markets for the work of each country’s craftsmen, to educate the people of the world to the value of craftsmanship, and lastly, to bring this about through proper leadership and in a spirit not of competition but of cooperation. In this spirit, craftsmen can move mountains and can lead not only in the practical but also in the spiritual field. Their cooperative attitude can not only help to achieve their own success, but can point the way towards a solution of many problems that beset mankind on this weary but still living and wonderful planet. For craftsmen it is an exciting time to be alive, for the future is theirs for the making. May such a challenge be met with vision and enthusiasm.

The opening of the World Congress of Craftsmen was June 8 –19, 1964. In 1965 Stanley Lechtzin and Olaf Skoogfors traveled to Europe to visit Freidrich Becker, Reinhold Reiling, Claus Bury, Max Fröhlich, Sigurd Persson, Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins.

Jeweler Bruce Metcalf, in his essay On the Nature Jewelry, speaks about a new type of jeweler who feels responsible to concepts and ideals alongside the economic demands of making a living. Many jewelers insist that their production be completely divorced from the marketplace. To some, jewelry has become a pure expression of thought and feeling, and less connected to the traditional roles of ornament. Stripped of the familiar codes and functions, jewelry has become a modern art form.

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