Margot de Taxco

Margot de Taxco
Born
Margot van Voorhies Carr

c. 1896
San Francisco, California, United States
Died(1985-07-26)26 July 1985
Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico
CitizenshipUnited States, Mexico (naturalized)
Known forJewelry design, silverwork, enamel
MovementTaxco School, Mexican modernism

Margot van Voorhies Carr (née Margot Durand;[1] c. 1896 – 26 July 1985), professionally known as Margot de Taxco, was an American jewelry designer and workshop proprietor active in Taxco, Guerrero, Mexico. She was the principal early designer for the Los Castillo workshop and in 1948 established her own workshop, Margot de Taxco.[2][3] She became particularly known for handwrought silver jewelry and colored champlevé enamel, including designs derived from Japanese art, Mexican and pre-Columbian imagery, animals, flowers, and geometric forms.[4]

De Taxco was one of the comparatively few women to direct a major workshop during the mid-twentieth-century Taxco silver movement.[5] Her work is held in museum collections including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.[6][7]

Early life and arrival in Mexico

De Taxco was born in San Francisco to a Dutch father and a French-Canadian mother.[8][1] Published institutional records generally give her birth year as 1896, although accounts of her early life are incomplete.[6]

She developed an interest in Asian art before moving to Mexico. During a visit to Taxco in 1937, she met the Mexican silversmith Antonio Castillo, one of the craftsmen associated with William Spratling's Taller de Las Delicias.[4] Van Voorhies Carr and Castillo subsequently married.

Los Castillo

While Antonio Castillo continued to work at Las Delicias, De Taxco began drawing jewelry designs that he produced in the evenings. The pieces sold successfully, and in 1939 Castillo left Spratling's workshop and established Los Castillo with his brothers, other relatives, and Van Voorhies Carr.[9]

De Taxco served as the principal designer during the workshop's early period. According to Antonio Castillo, her earliest drawings were largely two-dimensional, and his technical experience helped translate them into sculptural silver forms. She worked in a collaborative environment that also included Jorge "Chato" Castillo and Salvador Terán as designers and silversmiths.[9]

Many early Los Castillo objects reflected De Taxco's interest in Japanese art, particularly in their treatment of fish, waves, flowers, and other natural forms. Motifs later associated with Margot de Taxco first appeared during this period.[4][10] The silversmiths Reveriano Castillo and Miguel Meléndez experimented with enamel-on-silver techniques at Los Castillo, which Van Voorhies Carr later developed into an important part of her own workshop's production.[11]

Margot de Taxco

Following the end of her marriage to Antonio Castillo, De Taxco sold the house they had built together and used the proceeds to establish an independent workshop and retail shop. Several craftsmen from Los Castillo joined her.[12] The workshop, known as Margot de Taxco, opened in 1948.[5]

Margot de Taxco operated according to the collaborative taller system used by the major Taxco workshops. De Taxco prepared the designs and directed production, while specialized silversmiths cut, formed, assembled, soldered, enameled, and finished the jewelry.[13] She produced detailed colored drawings that served as models for the enamelists and compiled instructions describing the production stages for her enamel designs.[14]

Among the craftsmen associated with the workshop were Miguel Meléndez, Sigi Pineda, and Jaime Quiroz. Sigi Pineda became head of the enameling department before opening his own workshop in 1952.[15]

The workshop sold directly to visitors in Taxco and maintained wholesale and retail accounts in Mexico and the United States. Its Mexican distribution included Sanborns stores and accounts in Mexico City, Monterrey, Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, Guadalajara, San Miguel de Allende, and Mazatlán. American outlets included stores in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Tucson, and Washington, D.C.[16]

A fire in 1960 destroyed or damaged the workshop and forced the business to move from central Taxco to a location on the highway toward Mexico City. It moved again to a smaller shop in 1973.[17] Labor disputes and financial difficulties affected the company during the 1970s. A strike in 1974 closed the shop for several months, and the formal Margot de Taxco operation closed in 1978.[18][5]

Design and technique

De Taxco designed necklaces, bracelets, rings, brooches, earrings, and complete jewelry sets. Her work ranged from unenameled silver pieces to elaborate compositions combining sterling silver with translucent or opaque enamel and gemstones.[19]

Her silver designs incorporated a wide range of sources, including Japanese ceramics and textiles, Art Nouveau floral forms, Art Deco geometry, Mexican folk art, and pre-Columbian figures. LACMA describes her fish-and-wave motif as a favorite subject inspired by Japanese art.[20]

Her best-known enamel work used champlevé, in which recessed compartments in the silver were filled with enamel and fired. The Fowler Museum catalogue dates her significant use of the technique from approximately 1955.[5] The enamel provided intense fields of red, blue, green, black, white, and other colors while raised silver lines defined the design.

De Taxco's workshop assigned inventory numbers to its designs. Surviving pieces are commonly marked "Margot de Taxco", together with silver-fineness marks, Mexico or Taxco origin marks, inventory numbers, and, on some objects, the Mexican eagle assay mark.[19][15]

Later life and death

De Taxco continued to live in Taxco after the closure of her workshop. Original molds, patterns, and design drawings were dispersed, and some of her designs continued to be produced by other Taxco silversmiths.[21]

After a fall in April 1985, she was hospitalized. She died in Taxco on 26 July 1985.[22]

Legacy

De Taxco is recognized as a significant designer of the Taxco School and as one of the few women to establish and direct a major silver workshop in Taxco.[5] Morrill and Berk place her among the women designers and business owners whose workshops combined creative direction, specialized craft production, and extensive commercial distribution.[23]

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art holds a group of her jewelry in its Latin American art collection, and its records distinguish work made under her own mark from designs she supplied to Los Castillo. A silver Fish and Waves Necklace and a matching bracelet, both of about 1940, are catalogued as her designs made for Los Castillo,[24][25] while the Large Shell Necklace of about 1940 is catalogued with Los Castillo as maker and De Taxco as designer, and is shown in the museum's presentation of modern Mexican and Peruvian silver.[26] Work from her own workshop includes a silver and enamel Fish and Waves Bracelet of about 1955, which LACMA describes as returning to the motif she had developed at Los Castillo, and an enameled Diamonds and Dots set of necklace, cuff and earrings of about the same date.[4][27]

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum holds two complete ensembles: the Butterfly Swirls parure of about 1955, in champlevé enamel on sterling silver, and the Trapezoid parure of about 1950, both given by Carol Jean Schoelkopf Boss. The brooch, bracelet and earrings of the Butterfly Swirls set are each stamped with the workshop design number 5750, and the set retains a pouch bearing a Margot de Taxco seal.[28][29] The Cincinnati Art Museum holds a sterling silver bracelet of about 1948 that it catalogues with De Taxco as designer and her workshop as manufacturer.[30]

The Fowler Museum at UCLA included examples of her silver-and-enamel jewelry in the exhibition and catalogue Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda, where she was presented as one of the principal designers of the broader Taxco School.[31][3]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Artists + Designers | Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA)". www.lamodern.com.
  2. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 165–169.
  3. 1 2 Quick & Richter 2008, pp. 98–101.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Fish and Waves Bracelet (Pulcera con peces y olas)". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Quick & Richter 2008, p. 99.
  6. 1 2 "Necklace". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved 26 July 2026.
  7. ↑ "Margot de Taxco". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Washington University in St. Louis. Retrieved 26 July 2026.
  8. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 165–166.
  9. 1 2 Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 166–168.
  10. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 167–169.
  11. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 168–169.
  12. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 168–170.
  13. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 169–173.
  14. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 169–172.
  15. 1 2 Quick & Richter 2008, pp. 99–101.
  16. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 172–174.
  17. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 174–176.
  18. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 175–178.
  19. 1 2 Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 169–180.
  20. ↑ "Fish Hinged Bracelet (Brazalete en forma de pez con bisagra)". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  21. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 177–180.
  22. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 178–180.
  23. ↑ Morrill & Berk 1998, pp. 229–232.
  24. ↑ "Fish and Waves Necklace (Collar con peces y olas)". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  25. ↑ "Fish and Waves Bracelet (Pulcera con peces y olas)". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  26. ↑ "Large Shell Necklace (Collar con conchas grandes)". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  27. ↑ "Diamonds and Dots Set (Juego de diamantes y círculos)". Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  28. ↑ "Butterfly Swirls Parure jewelry set". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  29. ↑ "Trapezoid Parure Jewelry Set". Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  30. ↑ "Bracelet". Cincinnati Art Museum. Retrieved 8 August 2026.
  31. ↑ Stromberg 2008, p. 15.

Bibliography

  • Morrill, Penny Chittim; Berk, Carole A. (1998). Mexican Silver: 20th Century Handwrought Jewelry & Metalwork (Revised ed.). Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing. ISBN 9780764306631.
  • Stromberg, Gobi (2008). Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum at UCLA. ISBN 9780977834402.
  • Quick, Betsy D.; Richter, Kim (2008). "Silver of the Taxco School". In Stromberg, Gobi (ed.). Silver Seduction: The Art of Mexican Modernist Antonio Pineda. Los Angeles: Fowler Museum at UCLA. pp. 83–129. ISBN 9780977834402.
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