Bruno Martinazzi (Italian designer), “Eye” brooch in gold, overall 1 1/8 by 1 5/8 by 3/8 inches. Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Edward W. and Deedie Potter Rose, formerly Inge Asenbaum collection, gallery Am Graben in Vienna.

DALLAS, TEXAS — The Dallas Museum of Art has acquired the Rose-Asenbaum Collection, a group of over 700 pieces of modern studio jewelry created by more than 150 artists from Europe and around the world.

Selections from the collection will go on view here this summer as a new part of the ongoing exhibition “Form/Unformed: Design from 1960 to the Present.” The Museum will add this year a two-year position of jewelry research associate to its curatorial staff to prepare the collection and associated archive for publication and a more comprehensive installation of the collection and related jewelry holdings.

The collection includes a broad range of works from the 1960s through the end of the century. It is particularly strong in jewelry designed by Georg Dobler, Emmy van Leersum, Fritz Maierhofer, Hermann Jünger, Daniel Kruger, Claus Bury, Peter Skubic, Francesco Pavan, Gert Mossetig, Anton Cepka, and Wendy Ramshaw, and reflects the diverse styles, techniques, and materials that defined the studio jewelry movement in the latter half of the Twentieth Century.

The collection is named for Inge Asenbaum (b 1925), a Viennese gallerist, collector, and key figure in the field of design and jewelry. Her collection, which she amassed over four decades, was purchased by Dallas-based philanthropist and long-time DMA supporter Deedie Potter Rose in 2014 as a gift to the museum.

As an important new component of the museum’s international collections, modern jewelry will greatly enhance the ability to portray the richness and depth of artistic enterprise through the very personal medium of “wearable art.”

“The Rose-Asenbaum Collection is a distinct and exciting addition to the DMA’s growing jewelry collection and will serve as an important resource for our exhibitions and programs for years to come,” said Maxwell L. Anderson, the DMA’s Eugene McDermott Director.

“As we continue to expand our Decorative Arts & Design department, the Rose-Asenbaum Collection will be essential in supporting the DMA’s scholarship in this field of study, strengthening the understanding and experience of modern and contemporary jewelry as a compelling genre within the broader contexts of sculpture and painting.”

Inge Asenbaum’s passion for design led to the creation of one of the world’s most significant collections of modern and contemporary jewelry. Her collection reflects major pivotal moments in the evolution and development of jewelry as an art form.

Collection highlights include a geometric gold ring by Australian designer Frank Bauer that exemplifies the work of artists who sought to dissolve the boundaries between the so-called applied and fine arts in the 1970s and beyond, and a sculptural bracelet by Marta Breis, a Spanish artist, reflecting the use of semiprecious and prosaic materials, including silver, plastic, and steel, another aspect of studio work in the 1970s and 1980s that questioned jewelry’s historic associations with materiality and preciousness. A striking work is the brooch by Italian designer Bruno Martinazzi that presents an eyeball that stares at the viewer, suggesting jewelry’s function as a sculptural object to be worn and viewed. It also recalls the lover’s eye miniatures that were in fashion in the late Eighteenth–early Nineteenth Centuries.

The Dallas Museum of Art is at 1717 North Harwood. For more information, 214-922-1200 or www.dallasmuseumofart.org.