Robert Lee Morris
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Robert Lee Morris is a jewelry designer who attributes much of his inspiration to forms he admires in nature. His designs have been made in gold and silver. He is an acknowledged leader of the jewelry-as-art movement. He has collaborated or designed collections for fashion designers Kansai Yamamoto, Calvin Klein, Anne Klein and Donna Karan.
He was born in Nuremberg, Germany where his parents were stationed after the end of World War II. His father was in the US Air Force. He graduated from Beloit College with honors in 1965.
Morris was discovered in 1972 by New York gallery owner Joan Sonnebend and first exhibited at her art jewelry outpost in the Plaza Hotel called Sculpture to Wear. Shortly after Sculpture to Wear's closing in 1974, he opened the first edition of Artwear on the Upper East Side, near the couture district on Madison Avenue. Artwear relocated to SoHo soon after and quickly became known for its melding of fashion and art. Many of the jewelry artists promoted by Morris, such as Ted Muehling have gone on to open their own boutiques and to show their work internationally. As an offshoot of Artwear, Robert Lee Morris Gallery opened in 1986 in the original Artwear SoHo space on West Broadway focusing exclusively on Morris' own work. Morris closed Artwear in 1990 to focus on the commercialization of his work including selling through television marketing outlets such as QVC.
His career initially took off after featuring on the cover of Vogue in 1976.
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