BIPOC Jewelers
Art Smith
Art Smith was trained at the Cooper Union School in NY’s East Village. He was a modernist jeweler and was inspired by surrealism, his pieces were dynamic and dramatic in size and form but still wearable. He often designed performance jewelry for several dance companies. He opened his first shop on Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village in 1946. Smith was also an active supporter of black and gay civil rights.
Peter Bentzon
Bentzon’s work is considered to be very rare as not many pieces are known to have survived throughout the era. His work can be identified from his hallmarks. P. BENTZON and PB. He was sent to school in Philadelphia when he was eight years old, and when he was 16 he apprenticed from silversmiths in 1799. After 7 years, he moved to St Croix, where he started his own silversmith business.
Evangeline (EJ) Montgomery
EJ Montgomery was born in NY in 1933, in the 50’s she studied with craftsmen and jewelry designers in LA. She received a BFA specializing in metallurgy from the California College of the Arts. Her works consists of printmaking, lithography, metal work and she’s also a curator. She is particularly known for her work of “Ancestral Boxes” which incorporate silver, semi-precious and precious stones and found objects. She was appointed as an Ethnic Consultant at the Oakland Museum and is a promoter and advocate of the arts for the development of the community.
Winifred Mason
Mason was born in Brooklyn and received a BS in English Literature in 1934. She became a jeweler and worked primarily in copper, bronze and silver. Every piece she made was unique and not repeated, mostly working on custom made pieces, she was active in New York in the 40s. She worked for a while as a teacher for the Washington Project for the Arts and later as a crafts instructor at the Harlem Boys Club.
References:
Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum
North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary