Lovers Brooch by Sam Kramer of sterling, turquoise and garnet (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
While musicians and poets were rebelling against the status quo in Greenwich Village in the mid-20th century, metalsmiths like Art Smith and Sam Kramer were setting up studios there and reinventing modern jewelry.
Many people picture Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac or Bob Dylan when they think of Greenwich Village in its artistic heyday. Mad Men fans got a peek at that bohemian scene, circa 1960s, through Midge, Donald Draper’s beatnik lover.
Jewelry artist Sam Kramer (1913-1964) fit right in. Setting up shop in Greenwich Village in 1939, Kramer epitomized the eccentric artist, sometimes opening his store in the morning still wearing his pajamas.
Sam Kramer working in his Greenwhich Village studio
Kramer’s shop was itself a study in Surrealism, from a hand-shaped front door handle customers had to “shake” to enter, to oversized jewelry with hallucinogenic figures and Dali-esque body parts. Sam Kramer described himself as a rock hound and was known to incorporate fossils, meteorites, coral, rhinoceros tusks, even glass taxidermy eyes in his jewelry. He once attempted to make a bracelet from his wife’s recently-removed gallstones.
Audrey Friedman, owner of the Primavera Gallery, remembers exploring these shops in the 1950s, when flower and animal motifs were all the rage in fine jewelry. “I used to hang around down in the Village and I remember a lot of jewelers making things with glass eyeballs, things that were kind of surreal,” Friedman says. “You figure, if the style was birds and flowers, than to do something with eyeballs and lips would have been really different, very countercultural.”
Cuff bracelet of copper and brass by Art Smith, c. 1948 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
“A lot of studio jewelers had their studios in the Village then,” she recalls. “One place on MacDougal street – I forget who the guy was – had a doorknob with a big glass eyeball. I remember buying a piece of jewelry there and after I got it home, I decided it was godawful ugly and tried to rework it, unsuccessfully.”
It was easy to get caught up in the creative spirit though. “There was the idea then of doing something that was a little bit outrageous,” Friedman says. Those early forays into the Village left her with a taste for wearable surrealism and led to her own collection of Salvador Dali jewels, including the famous Ruby Lips brooch, which has been exhibited in museums around the world.
Not far from Kramer’s shop was the studio of Art Smith (1917-1982), another important jewelry artist of the forties. Smith’s jewelry also ran large but where Kramer’s was figural and humorous, Smith’s was abstract and dramatic. Daphne Farago was obviously enamored with Smith’s jewelry. There are 15 works by him in the 650-piece collection she donated to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 2005.
Necklace of sterling and semi-precious stones by Art Smith, c. 1958 (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
An African American who grew up in New York City, Smith took his inspiration from African tribal art and costume. He worked as a costume designer for several black dance companies in New York, which allowed him to experiment with his favorite theme: movement. “His work was very large and sculptural but designed to sit well and move with the body,” says Kelly L’Ecuyer, curator of decorative arts and sculpture at Boston MFA, who helped organize an exhibit of Farago’s collection in 2007. “His primary concern was the relationship with the body.”
“Work by Art Smith and Sam Kramer have, at times, a raw appearance, but in terms of the art world, they were at the cutting edge—the equivalent of a painter or sculptor,” says Yvonne Markowitz, the museum’s curator of jewelry. Part of the raw quality of this early work came from lack of available jewelry training in the U.S. at the time. Kramer took a jewelry-making course in southern California taught by a ceramicist and Smith apprenticed with a jeweler. Other jewelry artists of their day learned casting from dentists and forging by hanging out at dockyards.
While Smith’s jewelry was more graceful in form, Kramer did a lot to promote the use of found objects in jewelry. When Farago’s collection was exhibited in 2007, you could see the evolution from Sam Kramer’s 1950 cuff bracelet set with taxidermy eyeball to necklaces made a half century later from wooden rulers (by Kiff Slemmons) and crack viles (by Jan Yeager).
Jewelry by contemporary jewelry artist Bruce Metcalf was also shown, looking every bit as trippy and Surrealistic as the early work of Sam Kramer. Kramer would have appreciated the zany direction studio jewelry took after his death in 1964.
For more on this era, I recommend these books: Messengers of Modernism: American Studio Jewelry 1940-1960 or Form & Function: American Modernist Jewelry, 1940-1970
Related posts:
Salvador Dali: bejeweled surrealism
Alexander Calder’s jewelry: going mobile
Hello, I just discovered your site- truly amazing. Thank you. We have an Art Smith necklace and am wondering if there is a source to check on the hallmark or how he signed his fabulous work. Agani thank you for your time and your site. Dawn
Thanks, Dawn. This site shows a maker’s mark that looks like an actual signature: http://www.925-1000.com/amx_smithA.html. Good luck and let us know what you discover! Cathleen
I just found this article while looking up Sam Kramer. This is a really nice article. My mother moved around the corner from his studio in 1952 and bought her first Kramer item in 1954 when she was 13 years old. She remembers the hand door handle, saying that he used to put a glove on it during the winter. He also used to employ models to pass out flyers for his shop. They would be dressed as martians, wearing unitards, green makeup and fish bowls on their heads. His place was a popular hangout with the neighborhood kids and her dachshund was always welcome and Kramer gave him treats. Mom would go there every week, with a dollar more in allowance money, to check out the less expensive jewelry (he would say to her every week “You here again?” It was a running joke with him) and finally, with the choice narrowed down to three eye pins, Kramer helped her finally pick the one she bought, probably because he was sick of her indecision according to her. It was $25 and is unsigned. (She actually found $5 on the street, brought it to the police station, and they gave it back to her a week later so that saved her 5 weeks,lol.) She says he was very nice, but had the saddest eyes. I still have the pin of course. It was always my favorite piece of jewelry of hers though she never wore it that I can remember.
When she was 14 she got a perfect Ceylon star sapphire from him (he sold loose stones) which he set in a traditional yellow gold, 4-prong setting that he had. She looked all over uptown jewelry stores and finally got what she was looking for from him. She had the stone reset (it was too heavy for the setting), but I still have the setting, which is only interesting because it came from him.
Art Smith didn’t seem to be on her family’s flight path, but I do have my mom’s cousin’s wedding band which came from Paul Lobel. Her second wedding band, which she still has, was made for her by Phyllis, who worked with Ed Wiener.
Sorry this is so long. I love my mom’s reminiscences.
Sarah
Wow! This is amazing. Thank you so much for sharing this, Sarah.
Cathleen
Sam Kramer is my Great-Uncle…I would love to find more of his work. My Grandmother was married to his brother Jack Kramer, my Grandfather. Sam made my Grandmothers wedding ring set. I have the wedding band, and the engagement ring was buried with her when she died. I remember how eccentric it looked, with different kinds, and colors of semi-precious stones. I wish I could have met him…he died 10 yrs before i was born. we have some really awesome pictures of him back in his heydays.
Cindy, any pics you can share of the ring or Sam in his heyday?
thedukoffcollection.com is a top site buying sam kramer and other top jewelers
Does anyone know if Carol, Sams ex wife is still alive?.
I represent the estate of Art Smith and I work closely with the surviving members of Sam Kramer’s family. I collect, appraise, repair, and sell on a commission basis artist/studio jewelry by Smith, Kramer, Calder, Bertoia, DeRivera, George Rickey, Claire Falkenstein, and Margaret DePatta. The 2 Art Smith pieces and the Kramer in your article came from me; I sold them to Daphne Farago who donated her entire 700 piece collection to the Boston Museum of Art, many currently on display in their new wing.
Mark McDonald, Hudson NY
Dear Mark,
As you may have read, My Grandfather was Jack Kramer, Sams’ brother. If you wouldnt mind passing on the info to the rest of the Kramers, incase they wish to contact? My father is Tim Kramer, and is cousins with Sams son Keiron. They just lost touch for a real long time. Thx Cindy Kramer
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