LEGACY:
The Art of Barbara Natoli Witt

LEGACY is a retrospective exhibition of the jewelry designed and created by artist Barbara Natoli Witt, planned to travel nationwide beginning in fall 2006.  The central theme traces four decades of Witt’s career. Peripheral themes relate to the cultural symbolism found in adornment across time and place.

Barbara Natoli Witt is a contemporary artist with the rare distinction of having created her own medium.  Her unique necklaces blend tapestry techniques to form intriguing webs of colored threads, ancient beads, and gem stones which capture at their centers precious sculptured pieces, artifacts, and heirloom treasures.

In the course of her 35-year career she has introduced a new facet of jewelry arts, perpetuating the beauty of the ancient, the ethnic, and the exquisitely quaint within a framework of contemporary beauty and utility. Her work is included in many outstanding collections including the Smithsonian Institution, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and the Museum of Art and Design in New York; the Oakland Museum of California; and the Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta. The exhibition, now being organized by Kathleen Rowold, Ph.D., professor and curator of the Elizabeth Sage Historic Costume Collection at Indiana University, will include 70-100 contemporary necklaces into which have been incorporated art from the ancient old world, Africa, Asia, North America, mezzo-America, and Europe.

While studying the ancient ethnic artifacts used in her work, Witt became fascinated by cross-disciplinary research into the origins of the art of adornment. She is drawn to the evolving, implicit meaning of symbols that are universally embraced and expressed in the material culture around the world. More specifically, Witt is driven by a desire to explore the motives for adornment, the historical role of adornment within artistic expression, and the universal importance of the necklace in establishing female power, status, and spirituality. As an artist, Witt is dedicated to renewing an appreciation for aesthetics in our daily lives by recycling and reintegrating the classical ideals of beauty, art, and symbols of the past into our modern sensibilities.

Witt has found inspiration for her designs within a variety of cultures including the following: the Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Syro-Hittite, Coptic, and Mohenjo Daro of the ancient old world; the Ashanti, Berber, Tuareg, Ivorian and Congo cultures of Africa; the Turkman, Tibetan, Indian, Kundan, and Indonesian cultures of Asia; the Han, Ming, Chia Ching, Ch’ien Lung, and modern cultures of China; the Haida, Tlingit, Eskimo, Lakota Sioux, Navajo, and Zuni cultures native to North America; the Sinu, Tairona, Chimu, Olmec, Maya, Mixtec, and Michoacan pre-Columbian cultures of mezzo-America; and the Italian, French, Russian, and the Georgian-, Victorian-, Edwardian-English cultures of Europe.

The range of symbols illustrated in Witt’s designs is impressive and demonstrates the universality of such images including the following: birds, butterflies, spiders, fish, frogs, snakes, trees, flowers, fruits, lions, deer, horses, sun, clouds, faces, masks, hands, and geometric patterns.

Artist’s Biography

Artist and designer, Barbara Natoli Witt, creates unique gemstone and tapestry jewelry that combines ancient sculptured pieces with original tapestry weavings. With an inherited respect for and a knowledge of art and history, her jewelry presents a modern statement which addresses itself to a great number of ancient and ethnic cultures.

Barbara Natoli Witt was born in Passaic, New Jersey into an Italian family, whose ancestry originated in the Aeolian Islands off the coast of Sicily. She was raised in surroundings rich in Mediterranean culture, which provided an early education in the disciplines of needle arts. After high school in Rutherford, she studied at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York, majoring in fine and graphic art, and specializing in painting, lithography, calligraphy, and color theories.

Directly after Cooper Union, Barbara moved to the Bay Area of northern California where she entered the University of California at Berkeley, to continue her fine arts education and begin her career as an artist. She studied with several renowned art researchers and historians who encouraged her enthusiasm and interest in the early Gothic tribes and the tracing of their travels and cultural influences throughout Europe.

In the late 1960s, Barbara began creating and teaching in a range of art disciplines including tapestry weaving, rug design, and macramé utilizing antique pieces in original tapestry weavings. Barbara became fascinated with the symbolism and the use of beads in both art and trade and soon began developing the techniques she uses today. Witt’s necklaces incorporate these materials into intricate tapestry designs. Influenced by Middle and Far Eastern knotting techniques, she combines ancient art objects with new weaving methods. Her works have become collected wall decorations as well as jewelry. All of her tapestries are made with her own hand-dyed threads and each is a one-of-a-kind creation.

To date Barbara Natoli Witt has designed over 1400 pieces including necklaces, belts, bracelets, and neckties. Her designs continue to grow, becoming more elaborate and intricate with each discovery and creation.

Witt’s work is now in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum and the American Craft Museum in New York City; Oakland Museum of California; and the Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta.

Her work is exhibited at private invitational showings in New York, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Sun Valley, the Napa Valley, the Bay Area, Atlanta, Toronto, London, and Paris.

Collectors

Over the years, much of Witt’s work has been created on a custom basis for individual clients including: the late Eleanor Lambert, Elsa Klensch, Kitty D’Alessio, Nancy Holmes, Martha Hyder, Marella Agnelli, Hon. Selwa Roosevelt, Mrs. Walter Annenberg, Mrs. Charles Price II, Mrs. George Shultz, Mrs. Robert Mondavi, Mrs. Barbara Tober, Mrs. Betty Tung, Ms. Joyce Ma, Mme. Louis Feraud, and the late Dinah Shore, Gloria Stewart, Judy Tishman, Hone. Pamela Harriman, and Clare Booth Luce.

Description of Exhibition

 LEGACY is an exhibition of 70-100 necklaces. Traditional hooded cases will not be used. Witt’s work will be presented in relation to seven different cultural areas from which Witt has taken inspiration. As such, the physical layout or design of the exhibition will be based on seven “islands”, each of which will incorporate 10-15 necklaces. Each necklace will be shown on a sculptural form standing on a pedestal designed to represent the respective cultural area. The pedestals will be grouped around a central, freestanding lighting source. At this time, fiber optics are being explored for the central lighting source.

Didactics, timeline, and murals will be presented in a traditional, wall-mounted manner.

Graphics will include the following:

-Title Wall or panel

-Murals: 48” X 60”

seven murals, one representing each of seven cultural areas

-Primary labels: 36” X 48”

one about Witt and her work

one about adornment, the Goddess, symbol language

one of a timeline of cultures

-Secondary labels: 24” X 36”

seven panels, each discussing one of seven cultural areas and its common symbol language

-Tertiary labels: 4” x 8”

identification of each necklace, image, sculpture

70-100 labels

Audio-visual presentation will include historical footage of Witt’s career, video images of Witt’s technique, and/or symbols from varying cultures, and/or interviews with noteworthy collectors, and musical background for the general exhibition space.

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LANDAU TRAVELING EXHIBITIONS
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