The Newark Museum is exhibiting three installations that highlight its Decorative Arts collection.
Newark: City of Silver and Gold from Tiffany to Cartier
Although Tiffany & Co. was Newark’s most famous silver manufacturer, the city was home to a number of important silver companies, and was the center of a vast gold jewelry industry. By 1900, sterling silver objects were being mass-produced at modest cost and sold through jewelry stores in every state in the country. In the same period, 14-karat gold jewelry had become a staple of modern fashion for both men and women. Newark jewelry workshops produced millions of pieces of gold jewelry annually.
American Craft: A Newark Museum Sampler
A new installation focusing on American Craft of the last 30 years. Through furniture, silver, ceramics and glass objects, this exhibition will demonstrate the diversity of the Museum’s landmark holdings in American Craft. There will be masterworks by Native American artists and African-American artists as well as superb works by New Jersey’s best-known studio craftspeople such as Ubaldo Vitali and Paul Stankard.
When Objects Became Art
A new installation that highlights the Museum’s century-old commitment to collecting and displaying modern ceramics and glass as art. Art ceramics purchased between 1911 and 1926 will be spotlighted, along with three examples of art glass from the 1920s. In 1910 the Museum mounted an exhibition called Modern American Pottery, and founded its decorative arts collection with examples from this display. In the 1920s, with the completion of the new museum building, more modern ceramics were purchased. The Museum started buying modern glass in 1912, and added major examples purchased from a 1929 exhibition at Bamberger’s Department Store titled International Ceramics and Glass that was echoed by an installation at the Museum.
