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The "Skaggs Fifth Avenue" Box
Fred Skaggs clearly had a very sly sense of humor. Notice the distinct resemblance in name and design presentation on his jewelry box to the famous “Saks
Fifth Avenue” department store in New York City. Fifth Avenue in dusty, little Scottsdale, Arizona in the mid-to-late 1950’s had yet to become a world-famous shopping destination, but a small group of talented and dedicated artistic friends, colleagues and collaborators at Scottsdale’s Kiva Craft Center led by Lloyd Kiva New, H. Fred Skaggs and Charles and Otellie Loloma were in the process of changing that forever. Above left, exterior view of the Kiva Crafts Center in Scottsdale, Arizona, c. 1950's. Above right, Charles and Otellie Loloma in their pottery studio and shop at The Kiva Craft Center, Scottsdale, AZ. c. 1956.
Left photo source and © Scottsdale Historical Society. Right photo source and © “Loloma, Beauty is his Name” by Martha H. Struever, Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe, 2005, pp. 12.
One of the greatest and most influential American Modernist jewelers of the 20th Century, H. Fred Skaggs (d.1982) was a modest man of mild demeanor who never sought fame or renown, preferring to quietly make his strikingly revolutionary jewelry in his succession of two small shops in downtown Scottsdale, Arizona for some 30 years.
Over the years, Skaggs developed a small dedicated local following around the Southwest and in California, but never achieved any degree of larger national or international recognition until much later and then primarily through his association with one of his talented jewelry students who did achieve worldwide fame.
Skaggs’ jewelry is revolutionary and ground-breaking in a number of significant ways; his unusual, swooping, streamlined shapes and designs are daring and innovative, his skillful manipulation and imaginative use of various metals and their varying textures, choice of unusual, interesting stones and unique ways of shaping, setting and presenting them are all significant artistic innovations in jewelry design and fabrication.
Fred Skaggs had perhaps his most profound influence on the career trajectory of the young Hopi Indian artist, Charles Loloma (1921-1991) beginning in the late 1950's when they were both living and working side by side in the Kiva Crafts Complex created by Lloyd Kiva New on 5th Avenue in downtown Scottsdale, Arizona. Charles and his wife Otellie were making and selling their "Lolomaware" line of handmade pottery there at the time and Skaggs had his jewelry studio and shop there. Skaggs admired Loloma’s pottery pieces and he offered to trade Loloma jewelry-making lessons in exchange for pottery. Loloma, who had already done some initial experimentation with jewelry-making, was intrigued and and the rest is artistic history. For the rest of his life, Loloma always credited Skaggs with being his most significant inspiration and mentor in jewelry-making. Looking at Skaggs' unique and inventive designs, uses of different textures
and surfaces in metals, asymmetric ring and bracelet shapes and unusual use and variety of set stones it's easy to see the genesis of a great many of Loloma's jewelry ideas and techniques.
This striking and dramatic wide silver bracelet is a perfect case in point; its interesting combination and contrast of
two distinctly different textured metal surfaces and colors, one highly polished, bright and reflective and one roughly unpolished, dark and non-reflective creates a wonderful and dynamic visual tension which perfectly and beautifully reinforces the jaggedly angular design like a river or arroyo flowing swiftly down a canyon. The unpolished area cuts
a very dramatic wide diagonal dark swath entirely across from side to side and top to bottom of the otherwise highly polished silver face of the bracelet with its raised “borders” of fluted silver edges suggesting waves or riverbanks.
This deliberate textural juxtaposition of smoothly polished and rougher un-polished darkened areas of silver in the same piece is a lesson Charles Loloma took well to heart and he used and explored this innovative idea and technique
of Skaggs’ many times to great success and recognition during his subsequent career in his various cast and fabricated silver and gold pieces. The bracelet measures 1 1/16” in continuous width all the way around. The inner circumference end to end is 5 1/4" and the gap between the terminals is 1 3/8" for a total interior circumference of 6 5/8". The bracelet weighs a substantial yet extremely comfortable and easy to wear 70 grams or 2 1/2 ounces.
The bracelet is in very good original condition overall for its 70 or so years of age with a fine soft patina from age
and use. There is a pattern of age-appropriate scratches and small dings in the silver surface some of which could be removed with buffing by a professional jeweler, if desired, but we prefer to keep the beautiful aged surface patina of the bracelet precisely as it is. There is also a small area of impact damage or dents near one terminal of the bracelet which most likely cannot be removed. This is visible in the photo at left in the second row of photos below. The purchase price of the bracelet takes this slight damage into account.
The bracelet is properly signed “H. Fred Skaggs” and it is also marked “Sterling” and “handmade” on the interior.
This bracelet is both an artistically and stylistically significant piece; a beautiful, eye-catchingly unique and extremely easy-to-wear Modernist jewelry masterwork by one of the finest and most innovative American Modern jewelry masters ever. It is unconditionally guaranteed to turn heads every time you wear it, including your own.
If this bracelet had been made by Fred Skaggs’ world-famous student, Charles Loloma, it wouldn’t necessarily
be any more original or any more brilliantly conceived or any better made, but it almost certainly would be priced
today in the neighborhood of $15,000-20,000.
SOLD
At left and right, cast silver cuff bracelet and earrings by Charles Loloma c. 1960's. Note the similar contrast in textures between the brighter polished and darker unpolished areas of the silver.
A strikingly beautiful and original Modernist Sterling silver cuff bracelet by H. Fred Skaggs, Scottsdale, AZ, c.1950’s