ROBERT LEE MORRIS
GALLERY
These Cara Croninger bangles are so perfect for this new years beginning. Colors of love.
I just found a big bin of my old belts!! OMG I have SO MANY archives to sort out! I have always made buckles and in the 70s I would go to Gucci on 5th Ave in NYC and buy plain straps to put them on si so I could wear my own buckles. Then when I worked with Donna Karan for 37 collection s, I ended up making zillions of buckles for her which were major parts of how she held her clothes together. Then in the late 80s I had a belt license with Cipriani Max Leather and had my belts in all the Saks and Neimans and Bergdorf…such dense history!
These sterling silver bracelets are all from a time when I had a huge staff of bench workers. I was able to create so many new designs and have them executed by wax carvers and silversmiths all under my studio roof in SoHo. These unique bracelets each had a new generation of clasps, complex mechanisms that I had no patience to figure out as I was so overwhelmed with the many licenses I had to design for such as leather goods, tabletop in metal and ceramics, watches, scarves, Warner Brothers, Donna Karan, on and on. My journey is such a BLUR, as I look back at the speed my life now, and I rediscover and re-polish the hundreds of silver pieces knowing that the price of silver has skyrocketed to $57 an ounce, these pieces become more precious to me. ( When I made the silver was under $10/oz!) I will be listing them on my website during the next week, though I may decide to hang on to some as it’s always bittersweet when they leave the nest!
Sunday afternoon in studio with my ladies…
Claudia Schiffer modeling some of my bold gold earrings. I hired her in the mid 80s for a campaign and used one of her glamorous images to use of her for scale. These earrings and many more are being uploaded and listed to my website this weekend.
OMG my keychain display is a whopper of powerful symbols and characters and signs and meanings all massed together from years of anthropological exploration for new but old forms of art.
I just received a new batch of sterling silver knuckle rings, knowing how silver is becoming a hot item once again!
Making a ton of one of a kind pendants in copper brass and verdigris for holidays.
Bringing back my classic Alpha and Gamma cuffs from the late 70s in STERLING SILVER
New sculpture ELECTRIC ARCH experimenting with COLOR! My fave colors, Japanese red lacquer and Verdigris, POPS and electrifies. Love how it blends into my iconic blend of tribal futuristic merchandising
This collection of earrings was a kind of alphabet or language of shapes that I began around 2003.. I am not sure what to call it. Bold graphic shapes, maybe like an alien language that I am simply downloading from Source? What to call it? Any suggestions my friends?
From Apple TV this most beautiful array of flying flapping sting rays looking like fall leaves, is deeply inspiring to me
Here is an assortment of my bracelets showing the wild variations between themes and architectural studies as they bend to wearability.
I am soon launching a new section of my website called Beaded Necklaces. Some of them like the ones shown here are mostly composed of individual strands sold independently so its all about layering your own look. The first necklace is an anomaly as it is not a beaded piece at all. Oh well.
Color for Fall, new necklace collections using some of the yummy beads I have collected over the decades. Making these pieces has been the most relaxing and rewarding way to thrive during the general world madness.
URBAN ZEN Summer silk collection by Donna Karan collaborates yet again with me in the jewelry department. I love her vibrant colors and how my beaded tribalesque jewelry works so damn well! Now I have been making one of a kind pieces just for Donna again, to sell in the Sag Harbor UZ store on Main St. The sensation of being in synch again with another designers mentality is blissful. These photos are from the Urban Zen summer 95 line list and I have just snitched a few examples of the sheer gorgeousness of the colors in jewels and fabric.
Just a reminder of my ARTWEAR collections often Muehling, Tone Vigeland, Gloria Lomas, Lisa Spiros, John Iversen, Kris Ruhs, Cara Croninger and many more.
Never shown before, never put out for sale, this rare collection of perforated bronze alloyed bracelets I made in the late 7Os. I bought my metal from Bob Michaels surplus metals on Canal street and loved experimenting with this sheet metal that came from construction of radiator grills. The alloy was such that it turned acid colors (LSD) pink and green when applied patina solutions. They remain part of my ancient RLM history. Ethereal cuffs and weightless airy bangles.
KRIS RUHS Ebony jewelry in my archive collection of Artwear artists. Kris made these painstakingly by hand, in the late 1970s and early 80s. He later moved to Italy and started Como Corso #10 in Milan, and has been incredibly active in that space for decades. Each piece of ebony was hand cut and sanded and polished and then configured into flexible architectural systems that were flexible and wearable using a waxed linen cord which sews all the pieces together. I have always been a huge fan of this multi talented artist. His entire collection is on my gallery website. @krisruhsstudio
Tone’ VIGELAND steel and 18k bangle, one of only a few pieces I have left of her incredible jewelry.
I created this ad for a show I had at JULIES ARTISANS gallery in 1977. Sculpture To Wear in the Plaza hotel had just closed leaving me with no place to show my work! I had just had the December 1976 cover of VOGUE and was in a massive state of flux. In between major moments of my life. I could not find any venue that wanted to take my work other than Julie’s place. None of the big stores knew what to do with my work even though I had been getting lots of editorial coverage from fashion magazines while at Sculpture to Wear. Bergdorfs, BonwitTeller, Bloomingdale’s, none of them knew where they would even put my work as there was no category for what I was making. It wasn’t costume or fine or estate jewelry. I went to Leo Castelli and Ivan Karp and many other SoHo galleries and while they all said they knew and loved my work they didn’t know what to do with it. Castelli told me to take it to the fashion editors but they couldn’t publish it unless I had a store to credit. What a frightening few months of my life. I was 29 years old. I had no other choice but to open my own gallery to showcase my own work and I asked all my favorite other like minded jewelry artists to join me. ( Ted Muehling, Cara Croninger, Patricia Von Muslin, Thomas Gentille, Arlene Fisch, Robert Ebendorf, and 30 other names.) Artwear was born in 1977 at 28 East 74 St. After 6 miserable months there with no walk-in traffic I was offered a prime space at West Broadway and Spring in the heart of SoHo. I was the first “designer” name to open in that neighborhood. August of 1978. I had $5 left to my name and was ready to abandon my NYC dream and return to rural New Hampshire a failure if the SoHo gallery didn’t work out. Within a week of opening I had thousands of walk in traffic and my career exploded. These knuckle rings have been a constant part of my long story and are still available on my gallery website today!
My iconic sculptural identity, my manipulation of metal tubes and concepts “Liquid Geometry” are revealed here… a blend of tribal earthy flavors and colors and sleek sci-fi futuristic forms. I have always loved layering as you see here. Yes it makes for BIGGER jewelry, but there are PLENTY of gutsy stylish people out there who NEED bigger jewelry to match their personality! Down with DITSY!
WELCOME TO MY MUSEUM & GALLERY OF COLLECTIBLE WOMEN’S AND MEN’S JEWELRY
Herein you will find the archives from the Robert Lee Morris personal collection that has been slowly gathered over a 52 year range, containing works of art to wear and adore. These are all original handmade pieces of stunning women and men’s jewelry that have been created to sell through ARTWEAR jewelry gallery. These pieces come from the many collections that Robert made for fashion designers such as Geoffrey Beene, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Karl Lagerfeld, Michael Kors and Kansai Yamamoto. Many of the archives have now been selling through fine art auctions and it is exciting to see how the original values have soared.
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Review of THE POWER OF JEWELRY by Robert Lee Morris on AMAZON
Robert Lee Morris is unquestioningly one of the most innovative designers of body ornament of our time. Long noted for his distinctive fusion of primal forms, hand workmanship, and cutting edge sensibility, his organic pieces are enthusiastically sought by connoisseurs of high fashion around the world. This book written by the artist himself and profusely illustrated with examples of his work, presents the varied production of his design genius over the course of his career. The many images of Morris’s work in metal and stone will fascinate anyone interested in the history if design and will be an inspiration and will be an inspiration to collectors, designers and students alike.
From Publishers Weekly
By the time he was 31, Morris had become one of the most influential jewelry designers in North America: his creations appeared all over fashion magazines like Vogue; his Manhattan jewelry store had become a favorite spot of celebrities like Bianca Jagger and Andy Warhol; and his work was marching down the runways of Calvin Klein, Karl Lagerfeld, Kansai Yamamoto and Donna Karan. In this coffee-table book cum memoir, Morris explains “how he grew from a self-taught jewelry designer to a recognizable brand name in such a relatively short time.” The designer, who is known for his “edgy blend of modern and tribal effects,” attributes his global sensibility to his college courses in anthropology and to his upbringing as an “Airforce brat.” He moved 23 times before he was 18 and lived for several years in Japan and Brazil. But its clear that the mainsprings of Morris’ success are his joyful, single-minded focus on his work and his savvy entrepreneurial spirit. Though his book contains asides on his marriage, his travels and his study of shamanism, it centers mostly on the origins of his signature creations, the development of the “designer jewelry” consumer niche in the 1970s and 80s, and the way he managed his brand “as if it were a wild horse in a rodeo.” Morris now designs up to 10 jewelry collections a year, and though the name-dropping can be a bit heavy-handed in spots, his memoir is full of friendly advice for young artists. Morris fans will appreciate this careful history, but readers unfamiliar with his designs may find themselves skipping pages to stare at the large, full-color photos of his smooth knuckle rings, gently bulging necklaces, mesh belts, herringbone collars and sensual bracelets. They are unlike anything else.
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