Alongside works by architects, builders and interior designers, the exhibition “U. A. M. : une aventure moderne” features around twenty jewelry items from the collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. In 1929, designers including Jean Desprès, Jean Fouquet, Gérard Sandoz and Raymond Templier joined the U. A. M. (Union of Modern Artists), eager to move fast, change the world and create something new. A world away from jewelers like Boucheron and Cartier, these inventors of modern jewelry banished all superfluous ornamentation, simplified lines and found stimulation in machines, speed and mechanical pieces like nuts, bolts and ball bearings. To create more affordable pieces, they used cheaper stones like citrine and amethyst, or lacquer. And yet they only really appealed to enthusiasts and an elite that included the Maharajah of Indore. The U. A. M. was dissolved in 1958.
« U. A. M., une aventure moderne », 30 May to 27 August 2018 at the Centre Pompidou
To read : « Raymond Templier – Le bijou moderne » by Laurence Mouillefarine and Véronique Ristelhueber, Norma Editions , 2005.
