This is brooch is by the American designer Eve Kaplin. It is part of her Mechanical series. The brooch has various rivets and different shaped loops which allow it to move. This means as a wearer you can adjust the position of the various elements to suit personal taste and whim. This is sometimes known as kinetic jewellery. Eve Kaplin was born in 1956 and studied design at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in Providence, Rhode Island, in the 1970s. Eve moved to New York and began her jewellery business. Sadly, Eve died young (aged 28) on 1st January 1984 in Brazil, the cause of her death was never established. The company she had established with her friend Joyce Loughran (Eve Kaplin Design, Inc.) continued producing her designs for a few years but closed in 1993.
Examples of her jewellery can be found on various online sites. A number of American museums have Eve Kaplin jewellery in their collections. There are several pieces at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution, New York branch and in Kansas City at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. The Nelson Atkins Museum has an interesting history. It was founded by William Rockhill Nelson, a real estate developer, who believed “for a city to be truly civilized, art and culture were necessities” and Mary McAfee Atkins, a retired school teacher and real estate investor. The two estates were combined and the Kansas City Museum was built in the early 1930s, opening to the public on 11th December 1933. Today it has over 45,000 works of art, a remarkable testament to its two founders. The museum has a pair of Eve Kaplin earrings in their collection donated by the notable American jewellery designer and artist Marjorie Schick whose structural creations can be found in many museums, including the V&A in London.
