How can museum collections serve as a resource for jewelry artists? Beth Carver Wees, Ruth Bigelow Wriston Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Dr. Emily Stoehrer, Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Curator of Jewelry at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Sasha Nixon, curator of A View from the Jeweler’s Bench: Ancient Treasures, Contemporary Statements discuss inspiration, education, and preservation.
Beth Carver Wees is the Ruth Bigelow Wriston Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum, where she oversees the collections of American silver and jewelry. Prior to joining The Met’s staff she was Curator of Decorative Arts at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She lectures internationally and is the author of numerous articles and books, including English, Irish & Scottish Silver at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and Early American Silver in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Beth holds degrees from Smith College and the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art. An alumna of the Attingham Summer School and the Royal Collection Studies, she serves the board of the American Friends of Attingham as Secretary. Beth was one of six organizing curators for Jewelry: The Body Transformed. She is about to open Jewelry for America, on display until April 2020.
Sasha Nixon is an independent curator, historian, and practicing metalsmith. Currently she is the Exhibition Design and Installation Assistant at the Museum of Arts and design. Her focus of study is on the interaction between contemporary art jewelry and ancient jewelry styles and techniques. She was the Center for Craft’s 2018 Windgate curatorial intern at the Museum of Arts and Design. She co curated MAD’s exhibition Fake News and True Love: Fourteen Stories by Robert Baines (October 2018–March 2019), the exhibition ANTIQUEMANIA, presented at Pratt Manhattan during the inaugural New York City Jewelry Week (November 12–18, 2018). Her solo-curated exhibition, for which she was awarded the Society of North American Goldsmith’s Emerging Curator’s Grant, A View from the Jeweler’s Bench: Ancient Treasures, Contemporary Statements is on view at Bard Graduate Center Gallery (February 5-July 7, 2019). Recent publications and simposia involvement include “Pixels Bejeweled: Modern Media, Contemporary Jewelry, and the Replication of Desire” at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s international symposium Digital Meets Handmade: Jewelry in the 21st Century in May 2018, and “In the Studio: Lin Cheung,” written for Metalsmith magazine.
Dr. Emily Stoehrer is the Rita J. Kaplan and Susan B. Kaplan Curator of Jewelry at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Stoehrer curated Past is Present: Revival Jewelry (2017 – 2018) and co-curated Boston Made: Arts and Crafts Jewelry (2019 – 2020) and Metalwork and Hollywood Glamour: Fashion and Jewelry from the Silver Screen (2015). Most recently, she contributed chapters to Arts and Crafts Jewelry in Boston: Frank Gardner Hale and His Circle and Maker & Muse: Women and Early Twentieth Century Art Jewelry. She is currently working on an exhibition and publication on the designer Elsa Peretti.
