Giampaolo Babetto

Giampaolo Babetto, born in Italy in 1947, is considered one of today's most important contemporary jewelry designers.
Influenced by contemporary art, initially by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, kinetic art, and optical art, in the late 1970s he became associated with the minimalist art of Carl Andre and Sol LeWitt. From then on, his language was reduced to the essentials: line, surface, and volume.
The proportions of the object are precisely calibrated to fit into the space based on its shapes, like beautiful architecture. His imperfect circles and ellipses distort the geometry, giving depth and a visual impression of movement that is unique in the history of jewelry.
The tension created by his austere and rigorous forms is heightened by the use of sumptuous gold, white or yellow, for brooches, rings, earrings, and necklaces.
Giampaolo Babetto works with gold like a painter, so much so that his matte gold appears to have been applied with a brush.
He also adds blue, red, and black pigments to his jewelry, applied directly onto the gold. Sometimes he uses the ancient technique of niello to create contrast and texture with the gold.

Since 1967, Babetto’s work has been exhibited around the world and is part of the numerous public and private collections: Schmuckmuseum,Pforzheim; Danner Stiftung Collection, Pinakothek Der Moderne,  München;Victoria and Albert Museum, London; National Gallery of Western Australia, Perth; Musée des Art Decoratives, Paris; Musée d’Art Contemporaine, Nice; National Museum of Scotland, Edimburg: Museum für  Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; Nordenfieldske Kunstindustrimuseum  Trondheim, Norway; Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin;Museum Für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt; Museu Textil i d’Indumentaria,  Barcelona;Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island USA; Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt; Grassi Museum, Leipzig; Musei Civici, complesso Museale Palazzo Zuckermann, Padova; National Gallery of Australia, Camberra; Museo degli Argenti, Florence; UniversalmuseumJoanneum, Graz; Die Neue Sammlung, München; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Hermitage Museum Foundation, New York; Museo Diocesano, Padova; Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum, Athens; Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, New York; Museo Nazionale Svizzero, Zurich; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas;Fondazione MAXXI – Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo, Rome; Kolumba, Kunstmuseum des Erzbistums Köln; Swiss National Museum, Zürich.

For over 30 years, Giampaolo Babetto has enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with Naïla de Monbrison.   
The MiniMasterpiece gallery is delighted to take up the torch of representing him in Paris and to exhibit a selection of his jewelry sculptures.