NYCJW: Cutting Etch—Mary Ann Scherr’s Legacy in Metal

As part of NYC Jewelry Week, curator and educator Ana Estrades discusses her research for the exhibition All Is Possible: Mary Ann Scherr’s Legacy in Metal, opening from February to September 2020 at the Gregg Museum of Art and Design in Raleigh, NC. Both talk and exhibition are a tribute to a larger-than-life artist-designer who influenced the metal and design communities for over 60 years.

When Mary Ann Scherr (Akron, OH 1921- Raleigh, NC 2016) moved from New York City to Raleigh in 1989, she was already an internationally renowned designer who had chaired the first Crafts Department at Parsons in Manhattan; innovated metal-etching techniques, which were promoted by Rio Grande Suppliers; and pioneered jewelry that functioned as body monitors. And yet, for the next 30 years she enriched the arts and life of her new community in North Carolina, where she taught at Penland, Duke, Meredith College and N.C. State.

This talk, “Cutting Etch—Mary Ann Scherr’s Legacy in Metal,” aims to explore the full extent of Mary Ann Scherr’s legacy, endless creativity, and innovations through new archival material, photographs of her work from private collections, and recent oral histories with relatives, friends, collectors, former students, and studio assistants.

Ana Estrades is a jewelry curator, researcher and educator, with an MA in decorative arts, material culture and design history from the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. She is currently teaching Modern Jewelry Designers 1870-1970 at Meredith College Art Department in Raleigh, NC, and also guest-curating an exhibition on Mary Ann Scherr’s jewelry designs in the Gregg Museum of Art and Design at N.C. State University, which will open on February 20, 2020. An article of her research on Scherr’s legacy in metal will be published in Metalsmith magazine in January of next year.

This event is part of New York City Jewelry Week (NYCJW). FIT is the official education partner.

New York City Jewelry Week is free and open to the public; RSVP for this event here.