Mexican Silversmiths Part 2
Estela Popowski
Estela was a Poland born painter who immigrated to Cuba after the German invasion. She moved to Mexico in the late 40’s and worked for the Los Castillo workshop designing jewelry. Soon after she started to work on her own pieces, influenced by mid-century and abstract designs, she built on layers of stone and metal, techniques better know as married metals and inlay.
Margot Van Voorhies Carr
Also known as Margot de Taxco, was an American artist who immigrated to Taxco, Mx in the 30’s and was married to Antonio Castillo from Taller Los Castillo. She was a designer there until opening her own workshop in the late 40’s. Her distinctive and meticulous designs of hand painted enamel were inspired by Japanese design and the Art Deco period.
Emma Melendez
Emma Melendez was a Mexican silversmith who opened her workshop in 1953 and lasted until 1971, after a break in to her store forcing her to close for several years. She was the nice of silversmith Rafael Melendez, who was William Spratling apprentice. Her designs are a modern take in Mayan and Aztec symbolisms.
Hector Aguilar
Hector Aguilar worked as the manager for Spratling’s workshop, and opened his own shop in the late 30’s called Taller Borda. It produced silver jewelry for many national and American companies, they also worked in hollowware, flatware and objects. His designs focused on simple line compositions of stylized animals, geometric forms and Mesoamerican motifs.
Victor Fosado
Victor Fosado studied painting and art history before becoming a jeweler in the 60’s. His work was worn by Mexican celebrities like Maria Felix and Dolores del Rio. He was an avid traveler, a gallerist, a musician, a Mexican arts promoter, an owner of a bohemian café and an actor, taking part in one of Jodorowsky’s famous movies, “El Topo”.
Sigfrido Pineda
Best known as Sigi Pineda, he started his silversmith apprenticeship when he was 12 years old. He worked with Los Castillo at age 15 and learned enameling techniques which he taught to Margot de Taxco’s artisans. He opened his own workshop in the 50’s and guided his style to a more modern approach abandoning Mesoamerican motifs as the rest of his predecessors.
Anna Morelli
Anna Morelli was a surrealist poet and jeweler who worked in Mexico in the 1960’s. Her workshop was in Taxco, the silver capital of Mexico at that time. Stones were of great importance to her work, it didn’t matter if they were opals, agate or pebble stones. She believed her pieces worked as amulets for one’s empowerment.
Valentín Vidaurreta
Valentín Vidaurreta was a painter and in the early 30’s became a jewelry designer for some of the leading workshops in Mexico from the jewelry golden age. Most of his work is signed by these workshops instead of him, so it’s harder to trace his work. He commonly used naturalistic and flower motifs in his work and was an avid orchid collector.
References:
Dreaming in Silver / Soñar en Plata: Silver Artists of Modern Mexico by Penny C. Morrill
Mexican Silver by Penny Chittim Morrill and Carole A. Berk
Fowler Museum
Museum Of International Folk Art
Correo del Maestro
The New York Times
LANG
Revista 192
Christie’s