To me jewelry is not just a pretty object that can attach itself to the body somewhere. To me the best jewelry achieves full realization only when combined with the body—when worn, when interacting with a neck, shoulders, face, arm, hand. Consciousness of the body [and space] is over and above metal, stones, masses, lines and textures.
Art Smith
Peter Loughrey was a talented pioneer motivated by a restless enthusiasm, crucially driven by the willingness to communicate, to share and to discover. An intuitive feel for the burgeoning interest in post-war design led Peter to establish the nascent LA Modern Auctions in 1992 — soon to evolve into the very first dedicated auction platform of its type. Although the initial turnover those first years was modest, LAMA’s impact and resonance was to spearhead a new era of collecting. With these auctions Peter, together with his wife and co-director Shannon, swiftly developed an interactive platform for what was evolving as an increasingly globalised tide of enthusiasts, dealers, curators and collectors. His auctions became a raison d’être, justification to what many of us were at the time tentatively yet willingly exploring. Here, in these auctions, post-war design was spot-lit centre stage, and celebrated as a movement in its own right.
If these initial auctions consolidated and gave focus to the market, then they also gave us an identity — achieved very simply through the semantics of the company that celebrated ‘modern’. A simple and obvious choice, but so influential and less cumbersome than the prevailing options of "twentieth century" or "post-war." Auctions at that time were traditionally associated with antiques, and there was a general disinterest within the trade to consider anything less than seventy years old as having any cultural or collectible value. Although this market had been described as being "modern" for some years already in the US, the word had not yet been internationalised beyond American shores to represent a collecting movement.
LAMA was established at exactly the right time. The zeitgeist was perfect, and helped guide many of us. Around this time I returned from the US and was shortly set to curate my first design auctions for Christie’s in London. Peter’s catalogues during this explorative period were invaluable. Perhaps difficult to understand now, in our era of immediate communication, but the fully illustrated printed LAMA catalogues were the equivalent of a fanzine that would be passed around, photocopied and then memorised. Nowhere else at the time was contained the detailed information that could allow us, many thousands of miles away in London, to distinguish between an early or a late example of, say, an Eames LCW, or to be exposed to the furniture of Schindler or Neutra. And crucially, there were prices. The prices meant that the market was real. And every so often there would be something in Peter’s sales — a trophy lying in wait for the knowledgeable — that would yield a revolutionary price, setting new records and issuing concentric ripples that gave us the confidence to recognise that our passion for this material was no daydream.
Peter had the fortune to discover his calling, and the certainty to pursue it, his delight for discovery underpinned by curatorial seriousness. Together with Shannon, LAMA established a keystone in the foundations of the modern market, flag-bearers of international design and with a global message. Today LAMA co-anchors a dedicated and influential network of US auction sites, all specialised graduates of that early era of modern discovery. A shared mission is always the most pleasurable, so thank you Peter, for helping guide the way.
Simon Andrews
Curator and advisor
Andrews Art Advisory
Art Smith 1917–1982
Art Smith was one of the most admired mid-century jewelry designers, bringing sophistication and drama to large-scale works made for everyday-wear. As virtually the only prominent African-American jewelry designer of the era, Smith kept a studio and showroom (with only two assistants) in the bohemian Greenwich Village for thirty-three years.
Arthur "Art" Smith was born in Cuba in 1917 to Jamaican parents and the family permanently settled in Brooklyn in 1920. Smith studied commercial art and sculpture at Cooper Union under a scholarship, graduating in 1940. He took an evening jewelry course with Winifred Mason, an African-American jewelry designer (regarded as the first, to work on a commercial scale) who became a major influence and mentor to Smith. Instead of gold and silver, she worked primarily in copper and used motifs from West Indian culture and folk art.
Smith apprenticed under Mason at her shop and studio in Greenwich Village for several years and in 1946, Smith opened his own shop. Early years were difficult for Smith, as an openly gay black man, and his shop was the target of vandalism and break-ins. Despite these hardships, he quickly made a name for himself in the downtown bohemian arts community with his stunning, sensual jewelry, that was sensitive to the movement of the body. He was close to and made works for luminaries such as Lena Horne and Duke Ellington. He also created commissions for modern dance companies run by choreographers including Talley Beatty and Claude Marchant.
By the mid-1950s, Smith's designs were carried by Bloomingdale's and boutiques across the country and they regularly appeared in Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. During this time, he was creating smaller works, on a larger production scale, such as stylish earrings, cufflinks and rings in sterling silver and gold that incorporated attractive stones.
In 1970, the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York (now the Museum of Arts and Design) held a retrospective celebrating Smith's work. Due to declining health after a heart attack, Smith was less produgious in the later part of his life; his shop closed in 1979 and he passed away in 1982. He was honored with another retrospective at the Jamaica Arts Center, Queens in 1990, curated by the African-American artist and filmmaker Camille Billops, and the Brooklyn Museum held the show From the Village to Vogue in 2008, highlighting Smith's momentous contribution to the medium.
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