The Bollmann Collection loan on show at the Florence Jewellery Week 2020

Peter Skubic Ring TENSION
2005, stainless steel, acrylic glass, 24x55x45 mm.
Coll. Karl & Heidi Bollmann

Bollmann Collection’ jewels will be the guests of excellence of the Florence Jewellery Week 2020. The Austrian couple Karl & Heidi Bollmann own the most prestigious European private collection of contemporary jewellery: over a thousand pieces realised by the most influential masters who have marked the history of the “New Jewellery” since the 50s to the present day.
Almost 30 pieces have been selected for the exhibition that will be hosted in the former refectory inside the Santa Maria Novella museum complex from the 28th of May to the 4th of June. Jewels by great names on the international scene, such as Manfred Bischoff, Peter Chang, Yasuki Hiramatsu, Fritz Maierhofer, Bruno Martinazzi, Francesco Pavan, Ruudt Peters, Gerd Rothmann, Peter Skubic, will be on show for the very first time.
The reason that gave the start to this incredible collection was the searching for a gift from Karl Bollmann to his wife, in the occasion of the arrival of the second son. Karl was looking for a jewel, unique not only in its workmanship, but above all original in its ideation. Happily surprised by the genius of Peter Skubič during a collective exhibition in 1972 at the MAK Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, Mr. Bollmann decided to commission him the special present. Karl provided him the stones, diamonds he had inherited, which should have given luster to the jewel… But the artist instead acted in total freedom and created a kinetic ring made of steel! It could be said that precisely Skubic’s freedom laid the foundations of this huge collection of wearable artworks.
Therefore, freedom of expression and artistic experimentation could be considered as the fundamental requirements of these jewels, chosen by the Bollmann couple precisely because they embody the spirit of their time.