Description
Antonio Pineda (1919-2009) Taxco Modernist Sterling Onyx cufflinks, No issues<br>whatsoever, fully functional. 20mm square, 21.2 gramsAntonio Pineda<br>(1919-2009)In the mountain town of Taxco in Mexico’s state of Guerrero,<br>large-scale mining can be dated to thesixteenth century, and silver is a way of<br>life. In the years following the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), jewelry and other<br>silver objects were crafted there with an entirely innovative approach,<br>informedby modernism and the creation of a new Mexican national identity. Today,<br>at the age of 89, AntonioPineda is one of two living members of the Taxco School<br>and is recognized as a world-class designerand a Mexican national treasure.<br>Nearly two hundred examples of Pineda’s acclaimed silver work willbe displayed<br>in Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda, a<br>travelingexhibition debuting at the Fowler Museum Aug. 24, 2008.Significantly,<br>given Pineda’s many accomplishments and international renown, he identifies<br>himselfprimarily as a taxqueño, or Taxco, silversmith. From its inception, the<br>Taxco movement broke newground in technical achievement and design. While<br>American-born, Taxco-based designer WilliamSpratling has been credited with<br>spearheading the contemporary Taxco silver movement, it was agroup of talented<br>Mexican designers who went on to establish independent workshops and develop<br>thedistinctive “Taxco School.” These designers incorporated numerous aesthetic<br>orientations—Pre-Columbian art; silverwork, images, and other artwork from the<br>Mexican Colonial period; andlocal popular arts—merging them within the broad<br>spectrum of modernism.Pineda himself is lauded for his bold designs and<br>ingenious use of gemstones. Silver Seduction tracesthe evolution of his work<br>from the 1930s–70s, and includes more than fifty each of necklaces andbracelets,<br>as well as numerous beautiful rings, earrings and diverse examples of his<br>hollowware andtableware. All of the works feature Pineda’s hard-to-achieve<br>combination of highly refined and hand-wrought appeal.Pineda’s jewelry is<br>especially known for its elegant acknowledgment of the human form. It is<br>oftensaid that a Pineda fits the body perfectly, that it feels right when it is<br>worn. So, for example, a thickgeometric necklace that might at first glance seem<br>too weighty or rigid to wear comfortably is, in fact,faceted, hinged, or<br>hollowed in such a way that it gracefully encircles the neck or drapes<br>seductivelydown the décolletage.In addition, no other taxqueño jeweler used as<br>many costly semiprecious stones or set them with asmuch ingenuity, skill, and<br>variety as did Pineda. Only the most talented of silversmiths could master
