Necklace of five copper rectangles alternating with 4 oval cross-sections of a long bone, each element connected at top with links of copper wire. Rectangles decorated with chased geometric designs (3 different patterns). Remnants of leather ties remain on ends of piece.
Necklace made by Jano Walley while studying at the Institute of Design, Chicago, Illinois.
Curatorial Statement
This necklace helps document modern design in Chicago after World War II, particularly the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Also known as the New Bauhaus, the Institute of Design was established in 1937 by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. After the Nazis closed the original Bauhaus school of design in 1933, the Chicago Association of Arts and Industries invited Moholy-Nagy to organize a similar school in Chicago that trained students in the Bauhaus philosophy of "total design" emphasizing the equality of all creative design with the "master art" of architecture. Renamed the School of Design in 1939, and later the Institute of Design, the school encouraged its students to experiment with different materials, methods, and colors to create simple forms that could be inexpensively mass-produced. Jano Walley attended the Institute of Design and later taught jewelry and ceramics at various Midwest art institutions including Black Mountain College and the University of Illinois at Navy Pier. Both Jano and her husband, John Walley, were major figures in the Chicago arts scene during the 1940s and 1950s.
