The Bauhaus was a school for design founded in Germany in 1919, just after the First World War in a period of political turbulence. It was to have a profound influence on 20th century industrial design.
Jewellery by the Bauhaus industrial designer Naum Slutzky reflects this age of machine technology and the new Modernist movement. Staggering inflation in Germany forced goldsmiths to turn to base metals. At the Bauhaus, meanwhile, the emphasis was on design and work processes rather than the value of the materials. This necklace is made of sections of chromium-plated brass tubing. Slutzky was fascinated by this newly commercially available material. He also worked in more conventional materials such as gold and cabochon (dome-cut) stones.
Naum Slutzky was born in Russia and later emigrated to Vienna. He studied both engineering and fine art in Vienna before working as a goldsmith at the Wiener Werkstätte.In 1919 he was asked to lead the workshop for metalwork at the Bauhaus school, where he became a master goldsmith in 1922, and stayed until 1924. After an interim period in Vienna and Berlin, he moved to Hamburg where he remained until he went into exile in England. He taught product design at the Royal College of Art, London and the College of Arts and Crafts, Birmingham.
His jewellery designs follow the Bauhaus principles of applying industrial imagery to domestic design. These principles also formed a link with some of the starker decoration used by French Art Deco jewellers of the time.
Physical description
Made from pieces of round section chromium plated brass tubing linked together, the neck band consisting of ten straight sections which increase in length from the screw fastener at the back; the pendant consisting of one straight section and four curved sections which form a moveable circle.
Place of Origin
Hamburg (city), Germany (made)
Date
1929 (made)
Artist/maker
Slutzky, Naum, born 1898 - died 1965 (designer)
Materials and Techniques
Sections of chromium-plated brass tubing, linked together
Marks and inscriptions
No marks
Dimensions
Diameter: 7 cm of pendant, Length: 32 cm overall
Object history note
Modernism Exhibition RF.2005/362
Historical context note
Naum Slutzky studied fine art, then engineering in Vienna before working as a goldsmith at the Wiener Werkstätte. In 1919, he was appointed as a teacher at the Bauhaus in Weimar, in the department of product design. Bauhaus principles of applying industrial imagery to domestic areas of design underpinned Slutzky's work as a jeweller and also formed a link with some of the starker motifs of contemporary French Art Deco jewellers. From 1927, he worked as an industrial designer until 1933 when he fled from Nazi Germany. Although he worked in conventional materials such as gold and cabochon stones, he was also fascinated by the newly commercially available chromium plated brass. Slutzky settled in England where he had a successful and influential career in various colleges including Dartington Hall in Devon, the Royal College of Art and Birmingham's College of Art and Design. Although he made very little jewellery between the mid-1930s and 1960, the early 1960s were again highly productive years when he worked principally in silver decorated with enamel and pebbles.
Descriptive line
Chromium plated brass tubing, Germany, Hamburg, 1929, designed and made by Naum Slutzky.
Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)
'Jewels and Jewellery' Clare Phillips, V&A Publications, 2000
Monika Rudolph, Naum Slutzsky. Meister am Bauhaus, Goldschmied und Designer, Stuttgart 1990
Joyasde del Modernismo Artista a la Vanguardia. Barcelona: Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. p. 137, no. 123. ISBN 9788480432252
Exhibition History
Artist's Jewels. From Art Nouveau to the Avant-garde (Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya 27/10/2010-13/02/2011)
Modernism, Designing a New World, 1914-1919 (Victoria and Albert Museum 05/04/2006-23/07/2006)
Modernism, Designing a New World 1914-1939 (Cocoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. 17/03/2007-29/07/2007)
Modernism, Designing a New World 1914-1939 (MARTa Herford, Germany 16/09/2006-07/01/2007)
Naum Slutsky (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg 11/05/1995-02/07/1995)
Labels and date
Naum Slutzky
Necklace 1929
Chromium plated brass, diam. (of pendant) 7 cm, L.32 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Circ.1233-1967
Naum Slutzky had a distinguished career as an inspirational teacher, both in Germany and in England as well as the distinction of being one of the most original jewellers to be associated with the Bauhaus. His jewellery designs are characterised by a simple, elemental elegance where the geometric construction is pared down to the irreducible minimum. Even such features as the clasp on a bracelet have an engineered simplicity which was typical of Slutzky's approach to his metalwork designs.
Naum Slutzky, born in Kiev in 1894, the son of the goldsmith Gilel Slutzky, emigrated to Vienna in 1905 where he first trained as a jeweller under Anton Diamant. From 1908 to 1912, he was a student of goldsmithing under Cheine Litweie. He briefly worked for the Wiener Werkstätte between 1912-13 before undertaking engineering studies (1914-19) at the Technical High School along with formal artistic training at the Viennese Art School. In December 1919, Slutzky was invited by Walter Gropius to be an assistant in the metal and goldsmithing workshops of the Weimar Bauhaus, working with Christian Dell and Laslo Moholy-Nagy. By 1922, he had risen to be a master goldsmith but by 1924, he had left and for the next three years, split his time evenly between Vienna and Berlin. Between 1927 and 1933, he practised as an interior designer, lighting consultant and goldsmith for the retailer, Kaufmann of Hamburg.
It was during this period in Hamburg that Slutzky began to be included in a number of important exhibitions. In March, 1928, he contributed a number of drawings and lighting designs to the Hamburg Secession exhibition; in the Hamburg Neue Secession exhibition of April, 1930, held in the Hamburg Kunsthalle, Slutzky contributed lamps and jewellery. He is also recorded as a exhibitor in the Deutsche Werkbund exhibition, held at the Societé des Artistes Décorateurs in Paris that same year and at the Hamburg Secession exhibition, held at the Kunstverein (March - April, 1931) his work was represented by a series of watercolours, drawings, metalwork and jewellery. In was during this period in the late 1920s that he met and became friendly with Gesche Ochs who was to become an important patron. The Slutzky jewellery and teapot (cat. no. ) held in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum were all acquired from Gesche Ochs in 1967.
Forced to flee to Britain from Germany in 1933, he first started working as a designer for the well established Birmingham lighting firm, Best and Lloyd but by the following year, he was a employed as an art teacher at the progressive school, Dartington Hall, in Totnes, Devon where he remained until 1940. After the war, from 1946-50, he was a tutor in jewellery design at the London, Central School of Arts and Crafts and from 1950-57, he was a lecturer in Product Design in the Department of Industrial Design at the Royal College of Art. He spent the final years of his career as Senior Lecturer in Product Design at the Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts (1957-64) and Professor of Industrial Design at Ravensbourne College of Art, Bromley (1965). He died on the 4th of November, 1965. [2006]
Materials
Brass; Chromium
Categories
Metalwork; Jewellery
Collection code
MET
