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Adler, Allan [1916-2002. USA. Silversmith/Jewellery Designer]
Adler, Allan [1916-2002. USA. Silversmith/Jewellery Designer]
Alan Adler was born in Missoula, Montana in 1916 and subsequently moved to Los Angeles in California where he lived and worked for most of his life. He began an apprenticeship in 1938 and trained as a silversmith with his father-in-law, Porter Blanchard (1886-1973). He subsequently worked as a silversmith for more than fifty years. From the mid-1940s onwards he also designed jewellery. During World War Two Adler worked for the U.S. Government for whom he constructed silver tubes that were used in radar systems. He opened his first shop on Sunset Boulevard in 1950. It had formerly been Blanchard's workshop where he himself had trained. Although Adler is associated with the Arts and Crafts tradition, the influence of Modernism is also evident in his work. He had numerous celebrity clients for his hollowware and jewellery including Errol Flynn, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Paul Newman, Clark Gable, Eleanor Roosevelt and Katherine Hepburn, and was subsequently dubbed the "silversmith to the stars". Commissions he received included tiaras for the Miss Universe and Miss USA Beauty pageants and solid gold mini-Oscars for Academy Award winners. He also created a silver hairbrush for Winston Churchill, flatware for the California Governor Pat Brown, and a silver coffee urn be used at a fund-raiser for John F. Kennedy presidential campaign in 1960. Following the destruction by fire of his Sunset Boulevard shop in 1980, Adler opened new premises in the San Fernando Valley, La Jolla, San Francisco and Corona del Mar. He won a Good Design Award from the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and was proclaimed a 'Living Treasure' by the California legislature. He died in Burbank, California, in December 2002.
DESIGN RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS (DRP) ©
DESIGN RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS (DRP) ©
