ARTS/CULTURE
‘Brilliant’
By Shauna Steigerwald
exhibition showcases ’60s and ’70s artist-jewelers Reader version for devices
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break from the family business and a trip to Europe led Kim Klosterman to begin what would become one of the world’s most important private collections of 1960s and 1970s fine jewelry. You can see part of her collection of artistic pieces reflecting the era at the Cincinnati Art Museum beginning Oct. 22. “Simply Brilliant: Artist-Jewelers of the 1960s and 1970s,” which runs through Feb. 6, showcases approximately 120 pieces from Klosterman’s collection and shines a light on jewelers who might otherwise be forgotten.
The collection begins That collection got its start around 1996, when Klosterman wanted a break from the family business, Klosterman Baking Company. She and husband Michael Lowe sold some art and headed to Europe for six months. But Klosterman wasn’t one to spend her time off doing nothing. Jewelry had already piqued her interest – a love she traces back to her grandmothers – so she took an intensive course on the topic from Sotheby’s Institute in London. Amanda Triossi, jewelry historian and the course’s instructor, showed Klosterman her collection of 1960s and 1970s jewelry. “This jewelry was big and bold and made with all kinds of unusual materials,” Klosterman said. “It was something 10
OCTOBER 2021
Movers & Makers
This jewelry was big and bold and made with all kinds of unusual materials. It was something I’d never seen before, and I immediately took to it.
– Kim Klosterman
I’d never seen before, and I immediately took to it.” The mostly yellow gold, large-scale pieces incorporate precious and semiprecious stones. Inspired by nature and the Space Age, they contain unusual materials, including crystalized gemstones, coral, shells, even animal hair – “a lot of materials that are drawn straight from the earth or the sea,” as Cynthia Amnéus, chief curator and curator of fashion arts and textiles at the Cincinnati Art Museum, describes it. Klosterman started searching for ’60s and ’70s pieces at jewelry shows, auctions and antique stores. She bought what she liked and researched the pieces later, often through their maker’s marks. Information about the jewelers was scarce back then, so she researched the 1961 Goldsmiths’ Hall exhibition in London and perused old issues of Vogue at the library. “A lot of it was learning as I went along,” she said.
Kim Klosterman
Selling jewelry became her side gig – and helped fund her collection. “I woke up one morning and said ‘I think I’ll sell jewelry,’ and that was my business plan. It was all passion.” Choosing which pieces to sell at www.kklostermanjewelry.com can be a numbers game. Celebrated jewelers of the period often created one-of-a-kind or limited-edition pieces, she explains. The pieces she sells were produced in multiples, but all the pieces are “wonderful and wearable” (and yes, she wears her own pieces). “I was really concentrating on a collection that was museum-worthy,” she said.
Sharing the brilliance Klosterman has loaned some of her 450 pieces to museums in the past, but she hasn’t done an exhibition on the scale of this one, which has already been shown in Belgium and Germany. “Many of these people were very heralded in the ’60s and ’70s, but they’ve long been forgotten,” Amnéus said. “I think it’s really important to bring them back to people’s minds. “We set out to give the public and scholars an overview of the period, what instigated the change in fine jewelry at