Bulgari Jewelry Going on Display at San Fran Museum

(IDEX Online News) - Jewelry is often described as being wearable art, but with the opening of The Art of Bulgari: La Dolce Vita & Beyond, 1950-1990 exhibition at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the division between art and jewelry is being blurred even further.

The exhibition will feature approximately 150 pieces created by the renowned Italian jeweler over four decades. It will highlight jewelry that defined a pivotal period in Italian design, and will include many pieces from the personal collection of Elizabeth Taylor.

It will display the jeweler's eclectic creativity and invention during the 1960s when the company began to create its own trademark by embracing boldly-colored combinations of gemstones, use of heavy gold, and forms derived from Greco-Roman classicism, the Italian Renaissance, and the 19th-century Roman school of goldsmiths. The company helped to develop a look that would come to be known as the "Italian school" of jewelry design.

It also features works from the 1970s and 1980s, a period influenced by Pop Art and other contemporary trends. "The hard-edged designs of the 1970s included a whole range based on the Stars-and-Stripes motif, while in the 1980s the Parentesi collection had a modular architectural presence; both show how the jeweler could lead in new directions with a strong sense of design," said Martin Chapman, curator in charge of European Decorative Arts and Sculpture at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

The Art of Bulgari: La Dolce Vita & Beyond, 1950-1990 will be on display at the de Young Museum from September 21-February 17, 2014.