Sam Kramer: Jeweler on the Edge

Despite being one of the most influential - and indeed most eccentric - of the American modernist jewelers, Sam Kramer (1913-1964) has received little recognition. His expressive, organic work and surreal workshop, located on West 8th Street in New York's Greenwich Village, paved the way for other mid-twentieth century metalsmiths, and for many more working today. Sam Kramer: Jeweler on the Edge investigates Kramer as both a seminal artist and a cult personality. Through lavish color photographs of rarely seen works as well as newly discovered archival material, the story of this unique individual is told against a backdrop of post-Second World War America, from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Mirroring both the existential angst and quirky humor of the Beat Generation, Sam Kramer embodied the iconoclastic spirit of his era.

Toni Greenbaum is a widely respected authority of international stature on modern and contemporary jewelry. She wrote the standard text on modernist jewelry, Messengers of Modernism: American Studio Jewelry 1940-1960, as well as countless book chapters, exhibition catalogues and essays. Greenbaum lectures internationally and is a professor at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York.