MUNICH.- On the occasion of his upcoming 80th birthday, Die Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich is dedicating the first comprehensive exhibition to the fascinating work of jewelry artist Anton Cepka. Thanks to numerous national and international, private and institutional lenders, an in-depth look into Cepka’s oeuvre with around 200 jewelry objects made between 1963 and 2005 has been made possible for the first time.

Jewelry and object artist Anton Cepka, born in the Czechoslovakian, now Slovakian town of Šulekovo in 1936, is one of the most important jewelry artists of the 20th century and a protagonist of the so-called studio jewelry movement after the Second World War. He is now considered the doyen of Slovakian and Czech jewelry designers. With his works Kinetic art entered jewelry art for the first time in a conceptual way.

Whitened silver, optical glass, stones and modern acrylic glass are Anton Cepka’s preferred materials. Novel spatial concepts, which are relief-like at first and later become almost sculptural, are created in the shape of brooches and pendants. His jewelry and his objects as he himself says »bear all the signs of today. At the same time they express the reflex of today’s over-engineered world.« (A. Cepka). The elements of movement and light come into play in these pieces unexpectedly, referring to the kinetic art of the late 1960s.

Initially a student at the Bratislava School of Arts and Crafts, Anton Cepka graduated at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. As early as 1964, he received the Bavarian State Award for his work at Internationale Handwerksmesse (International Crafts Fair) in Munich.

His final break-through came in 1968 with his participation in the international jewelry symposium in Jablonec nad Nisou. Thanks to his formal vocabulary, which is reminiscent of Constructivist art, he was one of few remained unchallenged by an autocratic state for a long time.

An exhibition of Die Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich. Supported by the Slovakian Embassy in Berlin, the Slovakian Consulate General in Munich, Arnoldsche Art Publishers, Stuttgart, Danner Stiftung in Munich and Deedie Rose, USA. Under the auspices of the Minister of Culture of the Slovak Republic