Walter Schluep ( 1931-2016 )
Modernist Gold Bracelet, ca. 1969 18K Green gold cast link 194.3 grams.
Biography : Born in 1931 in San Feliu de Guixols (Spain), Walter Schluep spent most of
his childhood in Switzerland where he completed training as a jeweller and diamond setter.
When he arrived in Montreal in 1954, he worked as a setter as the experienced workforce in this area is scarce.
First he holds a position in the workshop of Gabriel Lucas then performs some work for Georges Delrue.
In the early 1950s, Georges Delrue welcomes to his workshop several young
jewellers from Europe who, like Walter Schluep, it’s an opportunity to make the acquaintance of Hans Gehrig, a Swiss-born
jeweler-goldsmith who arrived in Quebec in 1952. Schluep and Gehrig work as business partners from 1960 to 1964. Then Schluep
opened his own workshop-boutique in 1964, he devoted himself to a intensive research in terms of form as well as techniques used. During this
period, he developed a series of pieces with organic shapes. Especially inspired Seabed and creates such similar pin anemones (Fig. 1) in which it integrates
beads and stones (precious or semiprecious) to simulate a water drop or simply create light effects thus contributing to give a poetic character to its
compositions. The wax is used to model a shape which is then worked slightly in surface using a hot iron to obtain textured effects in the material. Small rods
metal are also added to the composition by using joining techniques most conventional, providing a contrast between the stiffness and the fluidity of forms.
Extract from: Entre art et artisanat : le processus de légitimation artistique des acteurs du monde de l’art au Québec dans les années 1960-1970
Walter Schluep : une étude de cas theses by Valérie Côté, Département d’Histoire de l’art Université Concordia, Montréal, Québec, Avril 2011
http://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/7308/1/Cote_MA_S2011.pdf
Walter passed away in Montreal March 23 2016: