French Lea Stein is considered an innovative designer in the field of plastic jewelry. An exhibition at the Bijou Museum in Casalmaggiore (Cremona) is dedicated to the designer, describing his creative career.
Lorena Taddei, a Milanese antique dealer, acted as a link between the artist and the museum. Directly from Lea Stein’s Parisian archive, hundreds of pieces never before exhibited were received in Casalmaggiore: the rarest brooches, among which the amazing silk-screened, the objects of tablecloths (some of them created for the Maison Guerlain), bracelets, rings, necklaces and buttons.
The sentimental, and then also professional, adventure of Lea and Fernand Steinberger starts from a button: they meet by chance, he compliments her for an original button that she wears. Only a few years after that meeting, however, the two meet again and can unite their lives and passions. Born in 1936 in Paris from a Jewish family of Polish origin and who escaped the horrors of the war, Lea Stein began the production of her brooches in the sixties: collectors know her characters (the Ballerina, Carmen, the Diver …) and animals (the Ric dog, the Gomina cat, the famous Fox …), made in the most curious and fascinating patterns with cellulose acetate sheets, cut and superimposed by her husband Fernand with a technique he himself invented and still secret.
The originality of her pieces is therefore entrusted to this ingenious recipe and is guaranteed by the dovetail clasps on which the inscription Lea Stein – Paris is engraved.
The exhibition will remain open until February 16, 2020 in the Zaffanella room of the museum and is curated by Lorena Taddei, in collaboration with Roberto Cavaglià, Elisabetta Ghidini and Paolo Zani, and with photos by Luigi Briselli, translations by Silvia Tomasoni.
Bijou museum
Via Porzio 9, Casalmaggiore (Cremona)
Hours: Tuesday to Saturday: 10.00-12.00 / 15.00 – 18.00; Sunday and holidays: 3.00pm – 7.00pm
Entrance: full 3, euro; reduced 2.50
