Marian Willard wrote those words in a 1941 press release for Calder Jewelry, an exhibit in her midtown gallery. Long before Robert Lee Morris's dramatic, hammered jewelry made its first appearance in the Manhattan jewelry and fashion world, Alexander Calder made a splash there with his own hammered ornaments. Shown at the Willard Gallery beside his soon-to-be-famous mobiles, Calder's jewelry was positively raw compared with the jewelry Morris and other designers would later produce. But through sheer creativity and daring, Calder and his contemporaries redefined jewelry and set the stage for much of today's designer and art jewelry.
When Morris's jewelry hit the market three decades later, it was being displayed beside Calder's. Morris credits Joan Sonnabend with launching his career in 1972 when she began carrying his work in her midtown gallery, Sculpture to Wear, along with jewelry