Collections

Modern Mexican and Peruvian Silver

A Revolution in Design

In the twentieth century the Mexican silver industry experienced an unprecedented resurgence. Two North Americans catalyzed this renaissance. In the mid-1920s, Frederick Davis opened a gallery in Mexico City and developed a line of handwrought silver jewelry. William Spratling, an architect from New Orleans, established a workshop in Taxco in 1931 where he worked alongside a local master silversmith and a handful of young men. A brilliant marketing strategist Spratling reinvigorated Taxco’s economy by employing hundreds of local artisans and creating a thriving local industry. Other designers–several represented in LACMA’s collection–followed and established equally successful workshops.

Insistence on handwork and the value placed on experimentation impelled the achievement of the Mexican silver movement. Designers and craftsmen drew on pre-Columbian art, the Arts and Crafts movement, Art Deco, and modernism, resisting slavish imitation in favor of technical and formal innovation. Many objects on view in LACMA’s collection reveal a fascination with indigenous cultures and ancient Mesoamerican forms and materials. The artworks were worn and collected by people worldwide, including artists, writers, and politicians: George Gershwin, Leopold Stokowski, Mae West, Leon Trotsky, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Miguel and Rosa Covarrubias, and Aldous Huxley all traveled to the quaint colonial town of Taxco, largely attracted by the revolution in Mexican silver.

—Ilona Katzew, 2013