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HERE’S A RARE SIGNED ORIGINAL VINTAGE 1950S MIDCENTURY MODERN ENAMEL-ON-COPPER PENDANT AND MATCHING EARRINGS BY COLORADO ARTISTS MARY JANE AND ED OSHIER!
Please Note: This vintage midcentury enamel jewelry set is still accompanied by its original artist’s fold-over paper label that reads: “Enamel On Copper By Oshier – This is an original hand-made creation by Ed and Jane Oshier. The process of enameling sets the beautiful colors of glass, on copper, by multiple firings at 1500 degrees Fahrenheit.”
The husband and wife team of Mary Jane and Ed Oshier created this rare matching set of enamel jewelry that includes a large pendant and pair of earrings. The pendant displays a modernist design comprised of a red decanter with two cocktail glasses, one rendered in pea green and the other in blue and red enameling. Each of these designs is outlined in black. Behind the decanter and cocktail glasses are two rectangular shapes, one in turquoise blue and the other an outline in black with a white interior. In fact, the entire design has a white enameled background with areas of grey shading. The backside of the pendant is counter enameled in a speckled dark grey-green. In addition, the pendant is signed in the bottom right corner with the initials “MJO” for Mary Jane Oshier. The earrings are small round copper disks with white black and red enameling.
The pendant measures approximately three and one quarter inches (3 ¼”) in height by two and one half inches (2 ½”) in width at its widest point. The earrings measure approximately three quarters of an inch (3/4”) in diameter.
Condition: Excellent and excellent all around! The small eyelet on the back of the pendant where the red leather strap is attached does have two small areas of enamel misses but these appear to be original to the pendant (or at least very old).
Please scroll down to read the artist biography about Mary Jane and Ed Oshier.
Domestic buyer pays calculated shipping for secure packing and USPS 1st class within the United States.
Selected International buyer pays calculated shipping depending on country. (International shipping is “only” available to: United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Japan, Israel, and New Zealand. If you are \"not located\" in one of these countries, please do not offer without contacting me for approval. Thank you.)
MARY JANE OSHIER 1923-2009 AND ED OSHIER 1922-2009 (information courtesy the website for The Enamel Arts Foundation)
Working together as well as independently, Ed and Mary Jane Oshier enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the enamels field. While producing work in other media including watercolor for Mary Jane and ceramics for Ed, their enamels – whether abstract or figurative – are among their strongest and most powerfully engaging artistic statements.
An early work by the Oshiers was featured in Designer Craftsmen U.S.A., an immensely influential exhibition organized in 1953 by the Brooklyn Museum. Among a small handful of contemporary enamels chosen for the exhibition, the piece was called Nun Trio and it depicted three nuns playing musical instruments – a harp, a mandolin, and a horn.
In 1959 their work was also included in the seminal exhibition Enamels at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in New York. A sprawling celebration of the medium, Enamels traced the history of enameling while also presenting some of the most significant work being produced at the time. The Oshiers were represented in this exhibition by four works – a 30 inch high fountain and several practical and elegant forms of hardware – a drawer pull, a door pull, and a knob. The prominent orchestra conductor Leopold Stokowski saw their fountain in the 1959 show and sent them a letter praising their work in the following terms: “I found the delicate sounds of the dripping water delightful.” After inquiring about the possibility of commissioning a second piece, he closed his letter saying: “Thank you for the pleasure I had in seeing and hearing your imaginative fountain.”
Two collaborative pieces by the Oshiers were featured in the 1954 National Ceramic Exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse and Mary Jane’s independently-produced enamels were also chosen for Ceramic Nationals in 1962, 1964, and 1966. Ed Oshier’s independent work, an ashtray decorated with the image of a rooster, was chosen for the Decorative Arts and Ceramics Exhibition at the Wichita Arts Center in 1952. Similarly, Ed Oshier’s work was selected for the Ceramic Annual at Scripps College in Claremont, California in 1961 and 1963 and Mary Jane’s work was chosen for that same show in 1961.
Ed Oshier received both his B.A. and his M.A. from the University of Denver. Mary Jane studied art in high school and married Ed immediately after she graduated. According to their daughter Manet, it’s likely that Mary Jane developed further as an artist in the early years of their marriage learning on her own and under Ed’s instruction. Manet also observed that by the time Ed received his M.A., Mary Jane had chosen enameling as her preferred medium.
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