PALOMA PICASSO (b. 1949)

Paloma Picasso, born in 1949, is a French Spanish fashion and jewelry designer who was artistically inclined from a young age. The daughter of painters Françoise Gilot and Pablo Picasso, she enjoyed drawing and turned to fashion design at the beginning of her career. However, jewelry got her attention because it felt more permanent. She told the New York Times in June 1971, “Fashion is so quick … every three months there is a new idea and everything changes. I would like to make jewelry that is not only fashion but would last—like sculpture.”

Paloma, as she liked to be called, started making jewelry professionally in the late 1960s, She made her first pieces—necklaces—for the dancers of the Folies Bergères. Feeling excited by the outcome, she pursued a technical education in jewelry and then showed her work to her great friend, the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, who sent it down the runway. In 1971, she started to work for Zolotas, the Greek jewelry company. Considered a tastemaker, her big break came in 1979 when she was invited by Tiffany & Co. to design a table setting for an exhibition. John Loring, the new creative director of Tiffany & Co., signed Picasso and a year later her new collection “Graffiti” was born, inspired by her desire to make something positive out of NYC’s urban street art: “In the ’70s, people were starting to tag subways and walls, which had everyone outraged. I wanted to look at graffiti differently and try to make something positive out of it.”

Paloma made a name for herself by having fun with her jewelry—she incorporated bright, bold, semiprecious stones that traditionally high-end jewelry houses ignored. But the strong fashions of the 1980s benefitted from her equally strong designs. Her interest in nature, romance (like her iconic “Xs and Os” collection), and talisman necklaces brought a bit of femininity to the power suit.

Paloma once said, “I’m doing something artistic but I’m not an artist, in the sense that I am working for the people who will be wearing my jewelry. I want the people who are wearing it to be happy."

Paloma’s work can be found in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History. In 1988, she was honored by the Fashion Group International for her great contribution to the industry. The Hispanic Designers Inc. presented her with its MODA award for design excellence, and she has been inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. In 2011, she was honored by an exhibition of her work at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington, D.C.

Visit our exhibition page for "Women of Vision" to learn more about the inspired, avant-garde, and original jewelry by women designers in our collection.