Tone Vigeland
Photo courtesy AFA
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For over forty years, Norwegian jeweler Tone Vigeland has created masterworks in silver, gold, and steel. Born in Oslo in 1938, she was trained at the National College of Arts, Crafts, and Design in Oslo and the Oslo Vocational School. In 1961, after serving as an apprentice in the silver workshop at Plus, an applied arts center in Frederikstad, Norway, she received her accreditation as a master jeweler and established her own studio. Free to pursue a more personal vision, Vigeland began to explore techniques that would allow her to create larger jewelry than she had previously fashioned that was both flexible and comfortable to wear. In the 1970's, Vigeland experimented with joining silver rings into various types of mesh, an approach that led to a successful series of works. By 1978, her sensual and fluid metal jewelry was attracting international attention. In the 1980's, the artist began to incorporate found bits of corroded iron and steel and commercially produced nails into her work. These works, probably the pieces for which she is best known, established her as a leader in the field of art jewelry. In recent years, the artist has opened a new line of inquiry working again exclusively in silver. Elegant in their simplicity, these works reiterate the strength of Vigeland's personal voice.
The Jewelry of Tone Vigeland, which includes work created between 1958 and 1995, is the first retrospective exhibition of the artist's work to travel in North America. |
The Jewelry of Tone Vigeland
is organized by the Oslo Museum
of Applied Art and The American
Federation of Arts with major
support from the Royal Norwegian
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Additional support has been
provided by the Benefactors Circle
of the AFA. The exhibitions
program of the AFA is supported
in part by the J. Carter Brown
Fund for Exhibitions, established by the AFA in 1992.
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Necklace, 1982
Steel, silver, 14kt and 18kt gold, mother of pearl
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Collection
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