Description
William Spratling(1900-1967) Taxco Modernist sterling Amethyst cufflinks 18mm<br>wide 12.9 grams. William Spratling(1900-1967) Spratling, an architect and artist<br>who taught at Tulane University in New Orleans, came to Mexico in the late 1920s<br>and settled in the city of Taxco. Having developed an interest in Mesoamerican<br>archaeology and culture from his colleagues at Tulane, he traveled to Mexico for<br>several summers lecturing and exploring. He sought out remote villages in the<br>state of Guerrero, 110 miles from Mexico City, where in some places Nahuatl, the<br>Aztec language, was spoken. Spratling collected artifacts and contemporary<br>indigenous crafts. Spratling made a fortune manufacturing and designing silver,<br>but his true life's work was to conserve, redeem, and interpret the ancient<br>culture of his adopted country. He explained for North American audiences the<br>paintings of Mexico's modern masters and earned distinction as a learned and<br>early collector of pre-Columbian art. Spratling and his workshop gradually<br>became a visible and culturally attractive link between a steady stream of<br>notable American visitors and the country they wanted to see and experience.<br>Spratling had the rare good fortune to witness his own reputation -- as one of<br>the most admired Americans in Mexico -- assume legendary status before his<br>death. William Spratling, His Life and Art vividly reconstructs this richly<br>diverse life whose unique aesthetic legacy is but a part of its larger cultural<br>achievement of profoundly influencing Americans' attitudes toward a civilization<br>different from their own.
