The art magazines "Parnass" publishes in its spring issue 2/2001 and the magazine "Jewelry" in its June/July issue an article, written by Claudia Lehner-Jobst, of the doyen of the Italian Jewellery Art scene, Francesco Pavan, who has been represented in the Gallery Slavik since many years. He also has a solo exhibition in the Gallery Slavik in May/June 2001.

Francesco Pavan

A Feel for the Fundamental Experiment and tradition are the poles evident in the works of the great Italian master Francesco Pavan. Galerie Slavik in Vienna is showing his newest pieces.

"Strict geometry and an almost tender touch to the material are the outstanding characteristics of Francesco Pavan`s Jewellery Art - and both are calculated to the core. The great Italian artist`s love of experimentation has no boundary. This man is searching, not necessarily for originality, but rather for true aesthetics and technical solutions. The multiplicity of his work unmistakably carries his signature - Francesco Pavan`s feel for that which is fundamental.

The master splits his new one-of-a-kind pieces into two groups that, at first glance, appear very different from each other. The necklace shapes are all reduced to the minimum, their principle simple, though the work and the forming of the materials is generous, luxurious, and sensuous. Cube and sphere elements in a row, the movement of the wearer begins the play of matte and shiny gold with the light. The brooches are light spatial entities, graceful and optically moving.

Francesco Pavan has remained true to his hometown Padua despite his enormous international success. He was born there in 1937 and began classes as a youth in the metal department of the Istituto Pietro Selvatico, where he recieved his diploma in 1955 and has worked as a professor since 1961. This art school undoubtedly plays an important role in the development of goldsmith artistry in Padua. It is a much prized center of research and of artistic exchange, and has presented the city with its worldwide reputation. These artists' works can be admired in every important museum and private collection. The school is often referred to as "The School of Padua", but the artists themselves are not very appreciative of this term. The scene is too complex - there is no uniform philosophy, although there are uniform aesthetic predelictions and talents. And these have been characterized by Francesco Pavan and his teacher, Mario Pinton. Together they reach that technical capability and precision are prerequisites for the celebrated motto "less is more". They renounce decorative trimmings on jewellery objects. The materials' qualities are investigated and respected in order to be able to create most optimally with them.

Francesco Pavans artistic goals are best attained with gold and its talent for shining and sparkling as well as its mythical aura. Gold is simultaneously simple and magnificent, is available in many glorious hues, and can be treated in unnumerable ways. It is not the costliness of gold that makes it the most-used material in Paduan workshops, but rather its full-bodied character. Brushed to unpretentiousness or polished to a glorious mirror-like shine, it completes the geometrically inspired shapes of Pavan`s jewellery according to the desired expression.
But in the end, it is harmony with the wearer that leads the jewellery to its function and aesthetic perfection.

Francesco Pavan is generally regarded in Padua as a pioneer of avantgarde tendencies. Since the 1960s, Pavan has gone his own artistic way. Shape and technical experiments were always the mainsprings of his expressivness. And these are based less on effect than on logical concepts. Clarity and linearity characterize Francesco Pavan's works, an artist who follows his aesthetic intentions in a serious, learned and retracted way. A jewellery object is created from an idea, which Pavan doesn`t first design graphically, but rather with cardboard or metal models. He finds the final shape in his precise constructions.

His consistent artistic development soon led Pavan to geometry: Discrete with white gold in combination with niello, the use of special jewels, rock crystal, or agate, and an exquisite treatment typical of a more formally aesthetic orientation expressed in earlier times. This is followed by decades of adding more and more playful elements, but also of an emphasis on the decorative features of the materials being used. In all of these years, Francesco Pavan has remained close to the contemporary happenings in the world of fine arts, such as Op Art. These contemplations have always stimulated him to new concepts. In the 70s there were kinetic pieces changing with movement that were created by the fascination with the body as a mobile carrier for jewellery. In the middle of the 80s, Pavan developed metal fabric from different colored materials like gold, silver, copper, and alpaca (German silver). Interweaved, soldered, and hammered, a very interesting texture arises from the metal threads. The results of Francesco Pavan`s journeys of technical discovery have always led to unusual interpretations of traditional treatment - such as the luminated brooches of the 1990s.

The year 2000 brought fourth works that pull all of the masterly registers of Francesco Pavan`s talent. Sensuality and rationality meld with each other as do experiment and tradition. The path of accuracy, consistency, and dynamics was worth: Francesco Pavan is regarded as one of the best jewellery artists in the international scene.”