Cooper Hewitt says...
Architect and designer William Spratling (1900–1967) is celebrated for his key role in the development of the twentieth-century Mexican silver industry. His workshop trained hundreds of Mexican artisans and provided a successful model for the growth of the industry.
Trained as an architect at Auburn University, Spratling joined Tulane University in 1922 as an instructor in the School of Architecture. He visited Mexico for the first time in 1926, meeting artists Diego Rivera and Miguel Covarrubias, then returned the following two summers to teach courses on Spanish colonial architecture at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National Autonomous University, Mexico City). In 1929, he moved permanently to Taxco, a historic mining town about one hundred miles southwest of Mexico City, where he remained until his death. In 1931, Spratling opened Taller de las Delicias, recruiting Artemio Navarrete of Iguala as his first master silversmith to create a range of jewelry and hollowware objects. His silver designs used local materials and were characterized by a modern aesthetic that often drew on Pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial motifs. The workshop operated hierarchically, with apprentices trained to eventually join the ranks of silversmiths, and Spratling sourcing the capital and design inspiration.
Throughout the early years of his business Spratling gained recognition in Mexico and in the United States for his modern designs based on historic and folkloric Mexican motifs. His business grew steadily and in 1937 he was invited to participate in the exhibition, “Contemporary Industrial and Handwrought Silver,” at the Brooklyn Museum. Following the exhibition, the workshop experienced a boom and began enhancing production with new technology in order to account for increased demand. The decline in luxury goods from Europe during World War II also opened a market to sell in the U.S. through Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, Tiffany, and Saks Fifth Avenue.
In 1940, Spratling incorporated the workshop, changing its name to Spratling y Artesanos, however, due to rapid expansion and financial difficulties he lost control of the company by 1945 and within a year it went bankrupt. After his departure from Spratling y Artesano, he was invited by René d’Harnoncourt, Chairman of the Arts and Crafts Board of the U.S. Department of the Interior, and Ernest Gruening, Alaska’s governor, to embark upon a workshop project in Alaska that was meant to replicate the success of Las Delicias. Spratling was to encourage Alaskan craftsmanship through training and designs based on local materials and indigenous traditions. While the endeavor never took off, the experience had a profound effect on Spratling’s style, leading him to explore abstract forms of the spiral and the arrow and incorporate a new palette that mimicked materials native to Alaska.
Spratling’s work is widely sought after by private collectors and can be found in several important US public collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the National Museum of the American Indian, among others.
