When it comes to silver, there's not a better or prettier moderately priced jewelry investment than the vintage silver jewelry of Mexico’s Silver Renaissance. Made in Taxco by a handful of avant-garde designers, Mexican silver necklaces and bracelets, Mexican silver earrings and silver belt buckles are prized by collectors and museums alike.
While the best Taxco vintage silver jewelry dates from the 1930s to the 1950s, much of it is Modern Art in the truest sense of the word.
How Taxco got its Groove.
William Spratling, an American architect from Tulane University in New Orleans, is credited with starting the modern Taxco silver movement. In 1929, Spratling went to the small mountain town of Taxco to research a story. He never returned.
Instead, Spratling saw potential in those black hills south of Mexico City and hired two master goldsmiths from a nearby town to create his designs, thus creating the famous “Taller de Las Delicias” (Workshop of Delights). Many of the famous designers who followed began their careers as Spratling’s apprentices.
Around the same time, Taxco was becoming a mecca for artists and writers. Among them were Frieda Kahlo and Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueros, William Faulkner and Sherwood Anderson, Movie stars, wealthy Americans and foreign diplomats followed. Before long, Taxco was a hot vacation spot and a high-end shopping destination for unique jewelry and silver accessories.
Famous Mexican Silver Designers.
Among the best known of Taxco silversmiths-or Taxquenos, as they called themselves-are Fred Davis, another American designer, Hector Aquilar, whose enterprise was the “Taller Borda,” Valentin Viadurreta, whose specialty was art deco designs and Antonio Pineda, the abstract modernist.
Other names to become familiar with are Margot of Taxco, Jorge “Chato” Castillo, Signi Pineda and Miguel Garcia Martinez and Salvador Teran. There are others or course. In coming articles you will discover the famous Taxco designers and the qualities that sets each apart.
Silver Shopping in Taxco and America.
Looking around the many silver shops of Cancun today is nothing compared to what it must have been to look around Taxco during the vintage years. At that time, shoppers were treated like royalty. They were wined and dined. Jewelry was paraded before them on models like high-couture was in Paris.
Americans who couldn’t get to Taxco could buy Taxco designed, mass produced silver, by Coro. Gump's in San Francisco and Montgomery Ward in Chicago carried silver jewelry and tableware by the Taxco designers.
From Pre Colombian to Modern.
After the Mexican Revolution, the new Mexican Government encouraged artists and designers to discover their roots. This was in direct contrast to the pre-revolutionary philosophy that touted Europe as the end all and be all of design.
In the early days, Spratling and the Taxquuenos found inspiration in the Pre-Columbian treasures that were being unearthed in archeological digs. Their jewelry was filled with geometric designs found on the pyramids and symbols from “The Codex Nuttall.” It was often enriched with Mexico’s semi-precious stoned: obsidian, jade, amethysts.
As time advanced, outside influences began to impose on the silver artists and their work reflected it. One of the most open to change was Antonio Pineda, who embraced modernism wholly, and who is still living.
Pineda’s silver work began, like the others, paying homage to the Aztecs and Mayans. As he matured, it took on a spare, modernist bent that was in keeping with the times. For instance, When Pineda saw the image of a World War II explosion, he translated that into a bracelet with bullet like forms tipped in amethysts.
Currently, the Fowler Museum at UCLA is running an exhibition of Antonio Pineda’s work called “Silver Seduction.” The next article in this series examines Pineda’s work and its impact on Modern Art.
For more information on “Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda,” visit www.fowler.ucla.edu. If you cannot make the exhibit, a book by the same name is available. It is a volume that should be in the library of everyone who loves vintage silver jewelry.
Regina Kolbe - After receiving a degree in journalism from the University of South Carolina, I landed my first job at Newsweek, on the circulation side, ...
