Drawing, Design for Postpriori II Brooch

Jamie Bennett’s jewelry is frequently described in painterly terms. His unique attention to surface, color, and detail spans discrepancies between the second and third dimensions, and indeed his jewelry is frequently shown alongside relevant drawings. In an interview with Susan Cummins for Art Jewelry Forum, Bennett explains, “I show the drawings with the jewelry to suggest their reciprocal influence. They do not need each other, but I do like to look at them together.” These two drawings relate to the Postpriori II brooch, part of a promised gift from Susan Grant Lewin. In each drawing, parts of the brooch are illustrated and enlarged, as if Bennett has focused in on a particular color, image, or motif. Natural forms, from blossoms to more abstracted stalks and even marine-like references are replete, as are various written notes, providing insight into process. While Bennett continues to explore the rectilinearity of the brooch in the drawings, his hand seems to move beyond the tidy borders of the object, as if musing on paper beyond the enameled edges of the brooch. In a statement regarding the Postpriori Series, he writes, “While these particular works are framed by the square or rectilinear structures, the images are meant to be less measured.”

Drawing, Design for Postpriori II Brooch; Designed by Jamie Bennett (American, b. 1948); brush and watercolor, ink, graphite on white wove paper; 22.9 × 33 cm (9 × 13 in.); Gift of Jamie Bennett; 2017-29-1