{{short description|American painter and jewelry maker (born 1958)}}
{{Infobox artist | bgcolour = | name = Sondra Sherman | image = | imagesize = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = 1958 | birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = | field = Jewelry designer | alma_mater = Temple University (BFA)<br>Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (Diplom) | movement = | works = | patrons = | influenced by = | influenced = | awards = }}
'''Sondra Sherman''' (born 1958) is an American painter and jewelry maker. Sherman's work has been praised for its "deeply personal" expression of human emotion and of the subjects inspired by them.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://artjewelryforum.org/interviews/judging-a-book-by-its-cover|title=Judging a Book by Its Cover {{!}} Art Jewelry Forum|website=artjewelryforum.org|access-date=2019-03-10}}</ref> Sherman's skills and reputation as a jeweler have earned her many awards, including a Tiffany Foundation Emerging Artists Award, various fellowships, and a Fulbright Scholarship.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://art.sdsu.edu/profiles/sondra-sherman/|title=Sondra Sherman {{!}} School of Art + Design|language=en-US|access-date=2019-03-10}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Sherman was born in 1958 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<ref name="Suzanne2014">{{cite book|author=Ramljak, Suzanne|title=Unique by Design: Contemporary Jewelry in the Donna Schneier Collection|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LG2DAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA133|date=2 May 2014|publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art|isbn=978-1-58839-554-2|pages=133–}}</ref> She majored in painting and jewelry at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia before moving to Germany in 1984.
In 1980, Sherman received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, where she concentrated in jewelry and painting. In 1990, she received her Diplom (a Master of Fine Arts equivalent) from the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich in Germany.<ref>{{Cite book|title=500 brooches : inspiring adornments for the body|date=2005|publisher=Lark Books|others=Le Van, Marthe.|isbn=1579906125|edition=1st|location=New York|oclc=55847487}}</ref>
== Career == Since 2006, Sherman has worked at San Diego State University as the jewelry and metalwork program head and a professor of art. She has also taught at Rhode Island School of Design, Savannah College of Art and Design, State University of New York at New Paltz, and Rhode Island College.
== Selected Series and Artwork ==
=== The Box Pieces === Sherman's series ''The Box Pieces'' reflects on archetypes and the dynamic which exist within relationships. This series primarily consists of jewelry objects which often reference archetypal literary and mythical characters including Miss Havisham, Venus, and Cupid. Sherman complicates these figures by incorporating themes such as sensuality, sexuality, and decay into their representations.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Cummins |first1=Susan |title=Beyond The Obvious: Rethinking Jewelry |last2=Bennett |first2=Jamie |last3=Gralnick |first3=Lisa |publisher=San Francisco Craft & Folk Art Museum |year=1999 |isbn=1877742066 |location=San Francisco, California |pages=49 |language=en}}</ref>
Each piece in this series is contained by a box made to serve as its complement, the feature for which the series is named. of these boxes, American Author Ralph Turner writes, "a narrative documenting the finding of the components of her jewelry is hinted at, or reproduced, on its container. This narrative permeates her graceful, 'classical' interpretations, which transform fragments from old chandeliers, photographs and crushed glass, reinventing them into votive and ambiguous ornament."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Turner |first=Ralph |title=Jewelry in Europe and America: New Times, New Thinking |publisher=Thames and Hudson Ltd |year=1996 |isbn=9780500278796 |location=London |page=74 |language=en}}</ref>
=== Anthophobia: Fear Of Flowers === This series, first exhibited at Gallery Sienna Patti in 2007, reflects on the increasing medicalization of American society by presenting plants typically used in pharmaceuticals in steel brooches that make visual reference to corsages.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Sherman |first1=Sondra |title=Anthophobia: Fear of Flowers |last2=Metcalf |first2=Bruce |publisher=Gallery Sienna Patti |year=2007 |isbn=9780977455966 |location=Lennox, Massachusetts |pages=2 |language=en}}</ref> Describing her own work, Sherman writes, "I hate pharmaceutical commercials. They make me nervous and then sell me something to ease my nerves. I like the idea of a medicinal corsage, and, jewelry that soothes."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sherman |first=Sondra |date=3 July 2018 |title=Anthophobia: Fear of Flowers |url=https://sondra-sherman.com/section/195826-ANTHOPHOBIA%3a%20FEAR%20OF%20FLOWERS%20.html |access-date=20 February 2023 |website=SONDRA SHERMAN Jewelry}}</ref>
=== Upside Down in Paradise === ''Upside Down in Paradise'' explores the cultural and geographic landscape of Southern California. Within this series, Sherman photographs the landscape as seen from inside of trains and cars, largely focusing on ordinary or mundane buildings, and then presents the images captured in jewelry objects.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Sherman |first=Sondra |date=26 February 2018 |title=UPSIDE DOWN IN PARADISE |url=https://sondra-sherman.com/section/466258-UPSIDE%20DOWN%20IN%20PARADISE.html |access-date=20 February 2023 |website=SONDRA SHERMAN Jewelry}}</ref> of this series, Sherman writes, "While ‘Upside Down in Paradise’ has a particular geographical reference, its subject is inherently universal- in the diversity of ethnicities and social histories which make up the culture of California, but also in the common experiences of (re)locating oneself in an unfamiliar place, or the perceptions developed while traveling through... The vestigial glamour of the California idyll of the 1950’s and 60’s, palpable in the faded commercial signs, and architectural facades which punctuate the roadside with their gemstone-like shapes, and generous proportions, against the expansive blue sky inspire oversize jewelry with sun weathered surfaces."<ref name=":0" />
=== The Gemstone Apothecary === Hybrids of science, superstition, and jewelry signifiers, ''The Gemstone Apothecary'' explores the complex intersections of rationality, belief, and emotional resonance. Sherman writes, "[''The Gemstone Apothecary}'' reinterprets healing stones as symbols for the psychosocial contexts of jewelry—concepts that have consistently driven my practice. ''The Gemstone Apothecary'' emerged as a reflection on the enduring interplay between rational science and emotional belief, using jewelry as a lens to explore humanity’s need for meaning, comfort, and control."<ref>{{Cite web |title=THE GEMSTONE APOTHECARY |url=https://sondra-sherman.com/section/535146-THE%20GEMSTONE%20APOTHECARY.html |access-date=2026-01-09 |website=sondra-sherman.com}}</ref>
==Collections== Sherman's work is in the permanent collections of:<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://artdaily.com/news/67425/-Sondra-Sherman--Found-Subjects--exhibition-runs-at-Hunterdon-Art-Museum#.XGmr7NF7kWo|title="Sondra Sherman: Found Subjects" exhibition runs at Hunterdon Art Museum|website=artdaily.com}}</ref> * the Philadelphia Museum of Art * the Boston Museum of Fine Arts * the Metropolitan Museum of Art * the Museum of Arts and Design * the Los Angeles County Museum of Art<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://collections.lacma.org/node/2230230|title=Sondra Sherman | LACMA Collections|website=collections.lacma.org}}</ref> *the Racine Art Museum * the Renwick Gallery-National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian Institution<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://americanart.si.edu/artist/sondra-sherman-27247|title=Sondra Sherman|website=Smithsonian American Art Museum|language=en|access-date=2018-03-20}}</ref> * the Rhode Island School of Design Museum * the City Museum of Turnov, Czech Republic.
== References == {{Reflist}}
== External links == *Sondra Sherman's [https://sondra-sherman.com/home.html official page] *Sondra Sherman's [https://img-cache.oppcdn.com/fixed/22812/sondra-sherman.com-1480903703.pdf 2016 resume] *Sondra Sherman's [https://sondra-sherman.com/section/176504.html portfolio] *[https://www.facebook.com/sdsujewelry/ San Diego State University Jewelry + Metalwork Program Facebook page] *[https://artjewelryforum.org/interviews/judging-a-book-by-its-cover Interview with Sondra Sherman conducted by Celine Browning for the Art Jewelry Forum, 2014]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sherman, Sondra}} Category:1958 births Category:American jewelry designers Category:Living people Category:American women jewellers