OAKLAND, CA.- The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded the Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) a grant of $20,000 to support the development of the forthcoming exhibition Space-Light-Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta. Premiering at OMCA in February 2012, the exhibition---which features new scholarship and a comprehensive look at the Modernist artist---is presented in conjunction with the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. The Oakland Museum of California is one of 1,057 not-for-profit organizations recommended for a grant as part of the federal agency's first round of fiscal year 2011 grants. In total, the Arts Endowment will distribute $26.68 million to support projects nationwide.

"Margaret De Patta's jewelry is a stunning example of a California pioneer making her mark on the national stage," says Executive Director Lori Fogarty. "OMCA houses over 1,000 pieces of studio craft made after 1945, including the largest collection of De Patta's work in existence today. Space-Light-Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta, premiering at OMCA in February 2012, showcases the Museum's commitment to telling the extraordinary stories of California and its people."

Space-Light-Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta
February 4 - May 13, 2012
In conjunction with the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Oakland Museum of California presents a retrospective exhibition on the work of pioneer jeweler Margaret De Patta. A seminal figure in the American Modernist Jewelry movement, De Patta was born in 1903 and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1923. Distinguished as one of the few American jewelers whose work was allied to the evolving ideas presented in the modern art movement, De Patta's work was heavily influenced by the Constructivists and features architectural forms with simple, modern lines. Space-Light-Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta features 50 jewelry pieces as well as ceramics, flatware, photographs, pictograms, and newly released archival material. OMCA holds the most extensive collection of De Patta's work, most of which was donated by her husband, Eugene Bielawski, after the artist's death in 1964.