Exhibition "Retour d'expédition par Harumi Klossowska de Rola" (Paris)

Having returned in spirit from faraway lands, but not from her beautiful obsession with wildlife, Harumi Klossowska de Rola will present her new collection of jewelry and objects at the Ecole des Arts Joailliers, on next January 23. The designer dreamed these pieces along her own terrestrial latitude - moving from Asian temples all the way to their Mexican counterparts through ancient Egypt - then made them real in collaboration with the best Italian and French-Swiss artisans: a gold-leaf screen crossed by lions, a bronze panther, an alabaster lamp in the shape of a lion’s head, stand next to pendants shaped like diamond beaked eagles, gold and ebony ibises, or rings swollen by fantastic skulls made of buffalo horn. Through this marriage of the useful and the sculptural, objects and adornments fuse into each other and further confuse the tenuous line that separates art from design and joaillerie. The objects are showpieces as well as pieces of furniture, and the jewelry isn’t necessarily meant to be worn.

Harumi Klossowska de Rola, daughter of the painter Balthus and the Japanese artist countess Setsuko, creates exceptional pieces between fine jewelry and art objects. Her creations have been exhibited and sold around the world: at Christie’s in Los Angeles but also in New York, Paris, Venice and Tokyo. 

Harumi has collaborated with fashion brands such as Giambattista Valli and Valentino. She has created in the past few years unique pieces for Boucheron and Chopard.

More than a collection, these jewels by Harumi Klossowska de Rola constitute a fauna, at once alive and petrified, mysterious and familiar. A world out of which spring creatures of wood and gold, dreamed of between Europe and Japan, tamed by the mind and then entrusted to the meticulous craftsmanship of certain Franco-Swiss artisans. Now miracles of sculptural jewelry, they turn bodies into chic jungles, where lions come roaring, dragons alight, diamonds sparkle and horses rear up. They are unique, wild and delicate. Their beauty is as their signature: new but timeless.