Poetics of meanings and forms in the avant-garde work of women jewelers of the 20th century

In the history of avant-garde jewelry of the 20th century, women artists played a particularly significant role. However, their names, as a rule, are mentioned only after famous male jewelers. In fact, they were quite independent and successful in their experiments with form, plasticity, materials and technologies in contemporary jewelry making. This article examines the work of iconic European and American women jewelers of the second half of the 20th century, who made a significant contribution to the formation of a new concept, artistic, plastic, figurative language of jewelry design. They represented different trends and tendencies that emerged in the mid-20th century in the author’s jewelry creativity. Some preferred innovative experiments with form, materials and technologies, others explored and rethought the traditions of ethnographic jewelry or looked for new ways of representing and interacting jewelry with the human body. But, in any case, without their discoveries today it is impossible to imagine the history of modern jewelry art.