Joan Mitchel
PRINTMAKER (1925 - 1992)
Joan Mitchell was an abstract artist born in
Chicago in 1925. Her prolific career spanned
over four decades, in which she worked with
oil on canvas, pastel on paper, and
lithographic printing. Mitchell is recognised as
one of the most significant artists of the postwar
era. She studied at the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago where she graduated in
1947. Mitchell was awarded a travel
fellowship that led her France for a year,
where her painting became sincerely abstract.
In 1949 she returned to the United States,
here she became an active participant in the
New York School of painters and poets.
Throughout her career, the significant
elements of Mitchell's works were water,
trees, dogs, poetry and music. With these
subjects she created images and memories.
Suzanne Belperron
JEWELLERY DESIGNER (1900 - 1983)
Suzanne Belperron was born in 1900 in SaintClaude,
France. She was an influential
jewellery designer based in Paris. Belperron
won first prize at the School of Fine Arts in
Besançon in 1918 and shortly after began her
career in 1919. When she was 19, she
worked alongside modelist-designer Jeanne
Boivin, of Maison Rene Bovin. Belperron
preferred to work with coloured stones
because of their beauty, rather than their
value. With these stones, she created bold,
avant-garde diamond sets that dominated
jewellery design. Her style was
incomparable, she had an eye for proportions,
assembling materials, and playing with
marriages of colours. Her target audience was
independent, emancipated women, free to
wear whatever they choose and included
numerous royals and aristocrats.
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