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Primarily self-taught in metalworking, merry renk was instrumental in the studio jewelry movement in the United States. In 1946, while still a student at Chicago’s Institute of Design, renk and two classmates opened the country’s first contemporary arts and crafts gallery, 750 Studio. The gallery exhibited the works of contemporary artists and craftspeople, including László Moholy-Nagy, Margaret De Patta, and Lenore Tawney. It included a studio where renk experimented with enamel and jewelry, creating linear ornaments made from wires that she bent, forged, cast, and arranged in groups. The hair comb, which went out of favor in the 1920s as fashionable hairstyles became shorter, witnessed a renaissance in the 1970s as long hair once again became popular with young women.
Branching comb
merry renk (American, 1921–2012)
American
1967
Object Place: San Francisco, California, United States
Medium/Technique
Silver; cultured pearls
Dimensions
Overall: 18.4 cm (7 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Joan Pearson Watkins in honor of C. Malcolm Watkins
Accession Number1986.912
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsJewelry, Contemporary Art, Americas
ClassificationsJewelry / Adornment – Hair ornaments
Primarily self-taught in metalworking, merry renk was instrumental in the studio jewelry movement in the United States. In 1946, while still a student at Chicago’s Institute of Design, renk and two classmates opened the country’s first contemporary arts and crafts gallery, 750 Studio. The gallery exhibited the works of contemporary artists and craftspeople, including László Moholy-Nagy, Margaret De Patta, and Lenore Tawney. It included a studio where renk experimented with enamel and jewelry, creating linear ornaments made from wires that she bent, forged, cast, and arranged in groups. The hair comb, which went out of favor in the 1920s as fashionable hairstyles became shorter, witnessed a renaissance in the 1970s as long hair once again became popular with young women.
DescriptionThe silver hair comb is composed of overlapping V-shaped elements, each made of silver wire with the ends hammered flat, arranged in a loosely branching form atop a three-pronged hair comb. Two cultured pearls are attached to the end of one v-shaped form located at lower, proper right.
ProvenancePurchased from artist between 1951 and 1981 by Joan Pearson Watkins; to MFA November 4, 1986, gift.
Copyright© renk