Tall, slightly balding, and dressed in bespoke suits, the visionary jeweler David Webb was a man who gave information selectively to the press, preferring to keep his own counsel. Even the facts he shared about his childhood were scant: we know he was born in 1925 in Asheville, North Carolina, worked at his uncle’s jewelry shop, and after high school briefly served in the army. It’s not that he was shy—far from it, by some accounts, especially during beer-fueled Friday-night poker games with the men in his workshop. It’s that he was focused on what he wanted to express. Underneath a certain Southern brio, he was a one-man marketing team, tossing bon mots with cunning, and charming magazine editors in the process. When he died, at the relatively young age of 50 in December 1975, mysteries lingered. But this much was rock-crystal clear: David Webb believed that jewelry was art. “The things I make have museum quality,” he said.
What does this mean? That a handmade piece of jewelry—whether it is a necklace or a pair of earrings—is communicating on many levels and can stand up to analysis. It means that Webb designed his pieces with intent and instinct, and that subtext, history, and passion live within them. In the course of writing two books on this American jeweler, I’ve been sleuth and stalker, sometimes just old-fashioned gumshoe girl detective, as I try to explain the cultural reverberations in his work and identify the underlying imagery and influences. Art, architecture, dance, fashion, and more, it’s all there. It’s what makes David Webb David Webb.
