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3129b

The Frank E. Lewton Turquoise Jewelry Collection

Currency:USD Category:Jewelry Start Price:100.00 USD Estimated At:100.00 - 5,000.00 USD
The Frank E. Lewton Turquoise Jewelry Collection
UNCLAIMED MERCHANDISE: In the event that a successful bidder has paid in full for their merchandise but fails to settle outstanding shipping invoices or make arrangements for merchandise pickup within 60 days, HWAC reserves the right to declare the merchandise forfeited. This forfeiture will result in the merchandise becoming the property of HWAC and the successful bidder shall have no claim to or rights over the forfeited merchandise.
The Frank E. Lewton Turquoise Jewelry Collection
By Fred N. Holabird, copyright 2024

Introduction

The Frank Lewton Jewelry Collection was assembled over three decades beginning in about 1970 with trips to Zuni, Gallup, Santa Fe and Albuquerque New Mexico. He was consumed with a love of Native American families and their art, developing a particular love of Zuni and Navajo jewelry and paintings of their culture and ways of life. Lewton was an engineer, World War 2 veteran, and a die-hard St. Louis Cardinal fan. (1929-2019)
The collection consists of over 1,050 pieces offered in this catalog and the upcoming November, 2024 sale. Lewton bought from dozens of families that made jewelry in many forms. He also collected some of the finest stones used by these artists from some of the most famous turquoise deposits of the American West.

Lewton’s all-time favorite place to visit his friends and buy for his collection was the Santa Fe Palace of the Governors. This building is Pueblo style and built over the years starting in 1618, becoming the center of Government for centuries. Today Native American families and artists offer their art in traditional forms. One of the more famous artists and sellers of great jewelry was Gilbert Ortega. Ortega opened his first store in Gallup, and by 1977 had 16 stores selling some of the finest Zuni and Navajo jewelry made by local artisans. It was with Ortega that Lewton made a great friend, even purchasing some of Ortega’s finest pieces from his flock of exceptional artists.

Lewton also collected books about his Zuni artist friends, buying original jewelry creations from as many as he could afford at the time. It was almost as if the books about the families were a checklist for him. He loved all genres of the art, from ancestral pieces which were emulated by Leekya and by his next two generations of family.
The Art of the Zuni and Navajo jewelry

The art of the Zuni and Navajo is unequalled by any other culture in the world. It was created through time, only in the latter nineteenth century incorporating silver smithing into the artform.

Carved stone artifacts were common among the ancients. This art form was “lost” until archaeologists were examining the Hawikuh Site and uncovered spectacular turquoise hand carved stone pieces. A young member of the excavation teem, Leekya Deyuse understood the immense importance of the finds, and began to carve his own pieces. Through time, Zuni also began carving small animals, called fetishes. They were and are an important part of the culture. Symbolism is an important part of the cultural expression of the jewelry, something sacred to many.

As the knowledge and quality of silversmithing grew with the turquoise work over nearly a century, more and more Navajo and Zuni began to create spectacular jewelry art. The ideas and iconography all came from their cultural heritage, rich with stories most Anglo cultures could never understand.

Artisans reached out to native American groups and miners across the West for turquoise, one of the magical stones necessary for their art. Soon, differing types, colors and textures of turquoise were discovered from about 1900-on rendering rocks so unimaginably beautiful that it all seemed fantasy. Learning to cut, polish and present the stone became a puzzle for the master craftsman.

The National Academy of Science published a book on turquoise in 1915, Vol. 12, Pt 2, “Turquoise”. This outstanding work introduced America to different turquoise deposits and mentioned their importance as a source for this magical jewelry. While the images were crude, they still sparked the imagination.

Over the years turquoise became even more popular, and thus eventually much more rare than first expected. By the late 1970s, artificial turquoise was made in Arizona, with a clever inventor selling bricks of artificial turquoise of near-perfect color.

Soon, many of the famous turquoise deposits of Nevada and Arizona became “mined out.” Deposits such as Lander Blue, No. 8, Carico Lake, and Nevada Blue, became a thing of the past. Kingman and Morenci also lost significant production. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, turquoise agents were always talking to those of us mining and exploration geologists in the field, reminding us they needed turquoise, and to let them know if we found new discoveries. My boss at Cities Service Minerals and I were always on the lookout, often driving to a remote part of a copper prospect area to look for the stones. Today, the USGS reports total gemstone production at only $9.9 million, with turquoise only a fraction of this amount. Yet the production of artificial gems is nearly ten times that amount, at $89 million reported in 2023. This underlies the fact that good turquoise is far rarer and more scarce than ever before. The artificial stones have taken over.
That’s why this Lewton Collection becomes so monumentally important. Turquoise, as a natural stone as seen in this jewelry from the 1970s, is simply stunningly magnificent.
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