George Brooks (born George Rybnicek, September 11, 1925 – July 21, 2023) was a Czechoslovak-born American jeweller. He was one of the first designers and fabricators of modernist and

wearable art Wearable art, also known as Artwear or "art to wear", refers to art pieces in the shape of clothing or jewellery pieces. These pieces are usually handmade, and are produced only once or as a very limited series. Pieces of clothing are often made w ...

jewelry in Canada, and later relocated to

Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coas ...

Early life and education

Born George Rybnicek in

Brno Brno ( , ; german: Brünn ) is a city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has about 380,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in the Czech Republic ...

, Czechoslovakia on September 11, 1925, Brooks immigrated with his mother and sisters to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1931. The text of the essay is reproduced on Brook's official website: His father was already living and working in Montreal as a

tailor A tailor is a person who makes or alters clothing, particularly in men's clothing. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the term to the thirteenth century. History Although clothing construction goes back to prehistory, there is evidence of ...

. After studying electrical engineering in college, Brooks chose to focus on visual arts. He attended the École des beaux-arts de Montréal, where he studied sculpture and metalsmithing, and served

apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a new generation of practitioners of a Tradesman, trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and reading). Apprenticeships can also enable practitioners ...

s with local jewelers before opening his own shop.

Career

Brooks's first apprenticeship was as a goldsmith with Henry Birks and Sons in 1948. He also set up a workshop at home where he could produce his own unique designs, markedly different to the conventional jewelry produced by Birks & Sons. In 1950, he transferred his apprenticeship to Georges Delrue, a French avant-garde jeweler based in Montreal since 1947. Delrue's work was influenced by European modernism, such as the work of

Jean Arp Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp (16 September 1886 – 7 June 1966), better known as Jean Arp in English, was a German-French sculptor, painter, and poet. He was known as a Dadaist and an abstract artist. Early life Arp was born in Straßburg (now Stras ...

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...

, and Jacques Lipchitz, and his workshop was the first modernist jewelry workshop in Canada. Brooks worked with Delrue for seven years, where he learned from craftspeople such as the silversmith Hans Gehrig (1929-1989). Gehrig and Brooks went on to found the Montreal Gem and Mineral Club in 1957. That same year, Brooks opened his first shop, which he sold in 1961. Brooks and his wife Jean then travelled, visiting gem sources around the world, including mining for opals, in Andamooka, South Australia. Brooks became a recognised authority on opals, amassing one of the world's largest collections of this gemstone. In 1962 Brooks relocated to

, where he continued working and producing unique, one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry until his retirement in 1991.

Exhibitions and legacy

Yvonne J. Markowitz, Curator of Jewelry at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, co-wrote an essay on Brooks for a book on his work published in 2010, in which she argued that Brooks's work had been largely overlooked due to "an accident of geography." In 1962, Santa Barbara was a small town which, although wealthy enough to enable Brooks to succeed enough that he had no need to publicise his work more widely, did not have the community to support modernist jewelers that existed elsewhere, such as San Francisco or Provincetown, Massachusetts. She also noted that the "pioneering modernists" in Canadian jewelry design had worked in relative isolation, with few links to the American or European studio jewelry movement. In 2009, the Musée des maîtres et artisans du Québec held an exhibition on modernist art jewelry in Québec between 1950 and 1970, which showcased the work of Brooks alongside that of Delrue, Gehrig, and other Canadian jewelers. Jewelry by Brooks is represented in the collections of several museums and institutions, including the Renwick Gallery, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Death

Brooks died in Santa Barbara on July 21, 2023, at the age of 97.

References

External links

Artist’s Website

Montreal Gem and Mineral Club
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brooks, George 1925 births 2023 deaths Canadian jewellery designers Jewellery making American jewelry designers Wearable art Czech emigrants to Canada École des beaux-arts de Montréal alumni Artists from Brno