The exhibition devoted to Helena Rubinstein pays no attention to her passion for jewelry. Yet this passion ran through the lifeblood of this rich self-made woman who invented cosmetics.<\/p>\n
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The exhibition dedicated to Helena Rubinstein does not present any jewelry, unlike the previous event at the Jewish Museum in New York in 2015. But photos and her portraits by Raoul Dufy, Salvador Dali, Christian B\u00e9rard, Man Ray, Jacques Helleu testify to her passion. She appears in it as described by Edmonde Charles Roux, editor-in-chief of Vogue: “loaded with jewelry like an idol”<\/em>. Flamboyant and exuberant, they are the signature pieces of this stout little woman of 1.47 meters tall. Just like her tight bun.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n An immoderate love of jewelry<\/strong><\/p>\n In “Why I love Jewels” (cf. exhibition catalogue), Helena Rubinstein writes that she loved jewelry from her childhood, when her grandmother gave her a necklace of tiny fine pearls. This necklace also gave birth to her pearl fetish, “synonymous with joy and affection”<\/em>. In Melbourne, where she opened her first institute, she began to collect them in all colors, sizes and shapes. While in Sri Lanka, she discovered the stones: “a new world of beauty has opened up to me,”<\/em> she noted in the same manifesto.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n An obsessive collector<\/strong><\/p>\n Having started with nothing, Rubinstein was a compulsive buyer: she accumulated paintings, sculptures, African art, furniture and of course jewelry. They are listed by Sarah Fox, her adviser, in alphabetical order: D for diamonds, E for emeralds as the necklace that belonged to Empress Catherine II of Russia, S for sapphires, etc. But she especially liked exotic jewelry picked up for a few dollars “in unlikely places”. She was a kind of Iris Apfel for whom esthetics prevailed over intrinsic value.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n