TAXCO DE ALARCON, MEXICO — Metallurgically speaking, it sounds paradoxical to talk about a "Golden Age" of silversmithing. But the phrase comes naturally to Antonio Pineda as he recollects the era when his lustrous creations adorned heiresses' throats, commanded praise from heads of state and draped the creamy skin of Hollywood stars.
Back in the day, circa 1940-80, Pineda was a charismatic, compact bundle of energy with a matinee idol's pencil mustache and a studio mogul's vaulting ambition. A master of silver design and sculpting, he oversaw a taller (workshop) that at its peak employed dozens of other silversmiths in relentlessly inventive activity. Fusing centuries-old techniques with the innovative tropes of Mexican Modernism, Pineda's studio and a handful of others coined a style of high-end fashion jewelry that briefly made this remote, colonial-era town of 50,000 into a tourist lodestone.
Today, at 89, he's a bit frailer and slower-moving. He no longer spends countless hours laboring over sleek silver necklaces with inset ovals and amethysts worthy of an Aztec princess or chic, futuristic geometric flatware fit for a millionaire's dining table.
But his playful humor, aesthetic judgment and apostolic faith in his chosen medium remain unvarnished by time. "The richness of silver is immortal. It doesn't die," Pineda says, repeating a favorite maxim over a lunch of chiles rellenos with one of his former apprentices, Javier Ruiz Ocampo, at Pineda's ranch home here.
The enduring beauty and ingenuity of Pineda's work have inspired a large retrospective, “Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda,” running through March 15 at UCLA's Fowler Museum. Drawn from the collection of Cindy Tietze and Stuart Hodosh of Los Angeles, "Silver Seduction" not only aims to make tangible Pineda's talent but also to animate the culturally rich, intense decades of Mexican history following the revolution of 1910-20.
That dynamic era of ideological and artistic ferment gave rise to Mexican Modernism and its cousin, a conspicuously 20th century brand of Mexican nationalism. The twin impulses flowered in the murals of Jose Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros; flowed through the introspective fiction of Juan Rulfo; haunted the iconoclastic cinematography of Gabriel Figueroa; and echoed in the primordial rhythms of composer Silvestre Revueltas.
