Daniel Brush: Jewels Sculpture

Book excerpt: Forty years of the legendary artist and sculptor Daniel Brush's sublime work with jewels. A unique figure in the world of contemporary art, Daniel Brush is in equal measure artist and craftsman. Over the course of forty years, Brush has created an unparalleled body of work, whose scope ranges from large-scale abstract drawings to sculptures in steel, aluminum, and gold. Collected here are more than 150 objects that bring to the fore Brush's astonishing work with jewels. Far from the products of the world of commercial jewelry, these are jewel-encrusted objects of virtue and fantasy that reflect not just the artist's rigorous personal aesthetic and mastery of technique, but his lifelong fascinations with philosophy and Asian thought, and his exhaustive knowledge of the history of precious stones. With photography made of the objects in situ inside Brush's studio in New York City, this book presents not only a catalog of his jewel work to date, but also an ethereal portrait of the artist himself. Housed in a slipcase, with photographs by Takaaki Matsumoto and an illuminating text by Vivienne Becker, this is an intimate study of the work of a master artist and a beautiful object in itself.