Linda Macneil

Linda MacNeil: Jewels of Glass is the first in-depth monograph to explore the development of leading American jeweller Linda MacNeil's jewellery and her contribution to late twentieth- and twenty-first century jewellery. MacNeil has inserted her voice into contemporary American jewellery as an innovator transforming glass into proxies for precious gemstones. She and her work have straddled the fields of Studio Glass and Studio Jewellery. A pioneer over her forty-and-counting-year career, she has united glass with metal and, recently, with precious gems. Exploring materiality and methodology, she uses historical precedent as a jumping off point to make stunning, wearable jewellery. This scholarly study presents approximately fifty of MacNeil's most significant pieces. Davira S. Taragin's essay interweaves MacNeil's biography with discussions of the development of her aesthetic. Noted jewellery historian Ursula Ilse-Neuman contextualises MacNeil's achievement within the art jewellery movement in general and the use of glass in jewellery over the centuries.