Many people who are familiar with Frank Gehry’s work as an architect may be a bit surprised to find him discussed on a jewelry blog. However, Frank Gehry was a multitalented and fertile creator and designer. Still, since this is a jewelry blog, this text will focus heavily on his collaboration with jewelry giant Tiffany & Co. to create jewelry lines.

Life of Frank Gehry

He was born in Toronto, Canada, though he has spent the majority of his life in the USA, in California. He says that he has always had a knack for architecture and art, so it was only logical for him to pursue a career in that field. He graduated from the University of California, majoring in architecture.

His famous architecture works

He has been hailed as one of the most important architects, not just in the USA, but all over the world. His works span all continents and incorporate mostly steel and glass, but he doesn’t shy away from more traditional materials either. The main expression of all his architectural works are natural wavy lines, breaking away from straight lines. The most famous buildings he designed are probably The Dancing House in Prague, Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, and perhaps most famous, Guggenheim museum in Bilbao in Spain.

Jewelry

Apart from his main career, Frank Gehry delved into a variety of design fields, including furniture, lamps, and even a yacht. However, for our purposes, we will focus on his collaboration with Tiffany & Co. to create jewelry. They created six separate collections over the course of their work together. Each is very distinct, and yet firmly inspired by and instantly recognizable as his signature work.

Torque collection

The key element of the Torque collection is the almost straight lines which he so often incorporated in his architectural works as well. All of the jewelry from this collection seems to be frozen in movement, which is how it got its name.

Fish collection

Fish have been an inspiration for some other works of Frank Gehry, so it was only natural that he would extend his fascination with fish to his jewelry collections. He incorporated a variety of natural materials, such as silver and onyx with wood to create perfectly balanced, yet still elegant pieces.

Orchard collection

This collection is inspired by nature and plants. The dominant designs are leaves which are intricately woven from gold and other precious metals, as well as small diamonds.

Fold collection

As the name suggests, this collection was focused on showing just how skilled Tiffany jewelry artists are. The main design is folding precious metals as if they were made of some easily malleable material such as paper, rather than of solid metal.

There are other collections he made for Tiffany, such as the Morph, Hearts, and Axis collections. However, the collaboration between these two giants of our popular culture has come to an end, and these items are no longer available for purchase as new pieces. Fortunately, there is the market of pre-owned jewelry which ensures that these discontinued items may still find new owners who would greatly appreciate them.

If you are interested in finding a piece of vintage Frank Gehry jewelry, you need a reliable and knowledgeable partner. Leo Hamel’s has been in the vintage jewelry business for over 35 years. Our showroom and jewelry store in San Diego offers a wide variety of new and vintage designer jewelry, and our helpful and skilled staff can help you find what you are looking for.