Upcoming Exhibition Follows 50+ Year Career of Metalsmith Eleanor Moty

Opening August 17, 2022 at Racine Art Museum (RAM), Quiet Elegance: The Jewelry of Eleanor Moty showcases over 35 works created throughout the career of the titular metalsmith—several taken from RAM's permanent collection alongside recently finished pieces borrowed from the artist. This exhibition will be on view at the downtown Racine museum through January 28, 2023.

Whether referencing the landscape or architecture—or both—metalsmith Eleanor Moty creates distinctive jewelry that poetically encompasses both wearer and viewer. The artist first gained recognition in the 1960s and 1970s for using cutting-edge fabrication techniques—such as electroplating and photo-etching—in adornment. She shifted her focus toward including stones in her work, exemplifying her dialogue with the “linear imagery” of quartz stones through the large-scale brooches she has been creating over the last couple of decades.

In essence, Moty’s elaborate and time-consuming process begins with finding an ideal stone—which a stonecutter has modified—and building from there. The artist engages with the stone's tone, shape, and features for each work. Preferring brooches to other forms of jewelry, she remarks on their relatively self-contained nature: “Brooches needn’t be worn to be complete…Not having to fit the piece to the body…I can concentrate on the sculptural aspects.”

Moty has been applauded for her many contributions to the field, including a 28-year teaching career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison—in a department she helped develop into one of the most well-regarded in the country.

Featuring 12 pieces by Moty from RAM's collection alongside recently completed jewelry and sketches borrowed from the artist, Quiet Elegance owes its name to a recently-published monograph on the artist. The exhibition follows a similar arc to the book in representing Moty’s
working career to date—over 50 years of making. Quiet Elegance: The Jewelry of Eleanor Moty, published by Arnoldsche Art Publishers, is available through the RAM Museum Store. Signed copies of the artist monograph are available online at racineartmuseumstore.org.

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Together, the two campuses of the Racine Art Museum—RAM in downtown Racine at 441 Main Street and the Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts at 2519 Northwestern Avenue—seek to elevate the stature of contemporary crafts to that of fine art by exhibiting significant works in craft media with painting, sculpture, and photography, while providing outstanding educational art programming.

Both campuses of the Racine Art Museum are currently operating with limited hours, open Wednesday through Saturday from Noon to 4:00 pm. Both museums encourage all visitors and staff who are not fully vaccinated, and those who feel more comfortable wearing a mask, to continue doing so in public areas at RAM and RAM's Wustum Museum of Fine Arts. Some in-person art classes and workshops at Wustum still require masks, determined on a case-by-case basis.