Cooper Hewitt says...
Antonio Pineda (1919-2009) was a prolific Mexican hollowware, tableware, and jewelry designer associated with the renowned Taxco School of silver. Born in the mountain town of Taxco, in Mexico’s Pacific coast state of Guerrero, Pineda studied with the artist David Alfaro Siqueros from 1930-1932 and then attended school in Mexico City. Upon his return to Taxco at the age of 15, he began a silversmithing apprenticeship at William Spratling’s Taller de las Delicias under the tutelage of master silversmith Alfonso Mondragón. Following his apprenticeship, Pineda worked for the celebrated Mexican painter and silver designer Valentín Vidaurreta who became an inspiration and greatly influenced his work. In 1939, with the support of his brother Manuel Pineda, he hired a small group of silversmiths and established his own workshop. With the artistic support of Bruno Pineda, Rafael Ruiz, José María Pineda, and Filiberto Gómez, Pineda’s workshop grew to nearly one hundred employees and rose to new levels of creativity. In 1944, his career was catapulted with a solo exhibition at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, where Richard Gump purchased 160 pieces on display and offered to sell his designs exclusively at Gump’s department store. Other retail partnerships followed in Mexico, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, and in 1964 Pineda opened his own lucrative retail shop in Acapulco.
Pineda’s bold designs coupled with his use of gemstones and superior craftsmanship led him to international success and his business flourished throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Pineda’s use of modern geometric shapes as well as Pre-Columbian motifs made him an important contributor to the formation of a Mexican modernist aesthetic rooted in national identity. In 1953, he won first prize at the inaugural National Silver Fair and would go on to win subsequent national awards for his silverwork.
After a decades-long career, he retired from the business in 1980. The Fowler Museum at UCLA organized his monographic exhibition entitled Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda in 2008, and he passed away one year later at the age of 90. Pineda’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum, the Dallas Art Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among other institutions.
