In mid-October, in Paris, while gallery owners, dealers, curious people and Art collectors flocked to the openings, cocktails and exhibitions of the Art Basel fair, another type of exhibition took place on Rue de la Paix. In the boutique of the jeweler Mellerio, founded in 1613, 26 pieces were exhibited constituting a precipitate of 20th century art.e century: Picasso and Braque, Dalí and Cocteau, Fernand Léger and Louise Bourgeois, Lucio Fontana and Jeff Koons…
No paintings and no sculptures, however: only brooches, bracelets, rings or necklaces belonging to Diane Venet. The wife of Bernar Venet, known for his masterful steel sculptures with curved lines, is one of the greatest collectors of artist’s jewelry in the world. “I discovered art when I was a student, at the end of the years 1960, in New York, thanks to a boyfriend who took me to the galleriesshe remembers. So I found this Roy Lichtenstein enamel pin for $3. Without knowing that this passion would become my life. »
From one window to another, we come across a compression by the sculptor César, a flat version in a small pendant, fashioned with his childhood jewelry, the scrap metal brooch that the visual artist Robert Rauschenberg had made for him, or even a yellow necklace from 2016 in painted and rigid rope signed by the painter Claude Viallat. “I asked him several times to make me a piece of jewelry. He never wanted to, saying he had never done such a thing, even for his wife or daughter. And then, one day, I received it by surprise… and in the mail! “, she tells herself.
Exhibited at La Piscine de Roubaix in 2008, at MAD in Paris in 2018 or at Villa Empain in Brussels in 2023, the treasures of its collection (220 pieces to date) take a detour for a few days through Mellerio, before a future exhibition at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, in April 2025.
The work in miniature
Straddling two arts, artist jewelry continues to be unclassifiable, not always understood or truly ennobled. However, they have benefited from a revival of interest over the last ten years. Dedicated exhibitions and auctions made it possible to publicize the miniature works of great artists of the 20th century.e century.
Some galleries opened in Paris, Brussels or London perpetuate the tradition with living visual artists. The Celine brand has launched small-scale editions, with the foundations and rights holders of established signatures: 200 Caesar compressions in 2020, 50 wooden amulets by the American sculptor Louise Nevelson in 2022, 100 pendants by Jean Arp this year.
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