There are 11 other images of this object. See our image rights statement.
Object Timeline
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1948 |
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2016 |
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2025 |
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Modernette Cuff Bracelet
This is a Bracelet. It was designed by Art Smith and made by Art Smith. It is dated Designed 1948, this example probably after 1948 and we acquired it in 2016. Its medium is copper, brass (alloy). It is a part of the Product Design and Decorative Arts department.
One of the few African Americans creating jewelry in the 1940s and 50s, Art Smith was drawn to making “wearable art.” He took inspiration for his biomorphic forms from modern sculpture, dance, and jazz. This bracelet gracefully embraces the wrist, using positive and negative space in a dramatic composition that reveals patches of the wearer’s skin creating a new awareness of the body as a living armature.
This object was
donated by
Susan Lewin.
It is credited The Susan Grant Lewin Collection, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
- Turret Pair Of Earrings
- oxidized sculpted bronze, bent gold wire.
- Gift of Susan M. Yecies.
- 2011-19-1-a,b
- Ring Ring
- gold.
- Bequest of Merle Sternberg.
- 2014-16-1
- Bracelet (USA)
- silver.
- Gift of Gretchen Gayle Ellsworth and Margot Gayle.
- 1997-171-1
Its dimensions are
H x W x D: 6.4 × 6 × 6 cm (2 1/2 × 2 3/8 × 2 3/8 in.)
It is signed
'Art Smith' on interior of cuff
Cite this object as
Modernette Cuff Bracelet; Designed by Art Smith (American, 1917–1982); copper, brass (alloy); H x W x D: 6.4 × 6 × 6 cm (2 1/2 × 2 3/8 × 2 3/8 in.); The Susan Grant Lewin Collection, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum; 2016-34-102
This object was previously on display as a part of the exhibition Jewelry of Ideas: Gifts from the Susan Grant Lewin Collection.
