The Estate of John Githens and Ingeborg ten Haeff

The collection of John Githens and Ingeborg ten Haeff reflects the couple’s presence at the heart of New York’s post-war artistic set for over forty years. Established first during ten Haeff’s marriage to the acclaimed city planner and designer Paul Lester Wiener, the collection was built upon by the couple via acquisitions and gifts from artists throughout their marriage. The eclectic variety of paintings and sculpture displayed in their historic Greenwich Village residence mirrored their shared reverence for creativity and intellectual thought. Githens, a Russophile who held professorial posts at major American universities, and ten Haeff, a noted musician and painter, were fixtures on the New York and East Hampton artistic circuits. Regularly hosting lavish dinner parties for a host of cultural figures, their residence became a veritable archive of correspondence and personally dedicated attributes. Close friends with some of the twentieth century’s most acclaimed artists– including Willem de Kooning, Alexander Calder, and Alfonso Ossorio – the works reflect the couple’s prominent role as bastions of Golden Era New York bohemia for over forty years. Rooted in boundless curiosity and an authoritative eye, the present collection offers a unique and highly personal perspective on the artists and movements of the twentieth century.

Alexander Calder, Reclining Bride, 1948

 “Never satisfied with superfluous decoration, Calder used jewelry as an alternative way of communicating his artistic ideals. He developed a direct process using honest industrial materials such as brass and steel wire that he bent, twisted, hammered, and riveted in an immediate way. At once primitive and refined, the resulting works show the eccentricities of his hand expressing subtly tactile qualities.” 

—Alexander S. C. Rower

Alexander Calder’s Reclining Bride, 1948, crafted from silver wire, steel wire, and colored glass, transcends the conventional boundaries between jewelry and sculpture. Transforming humble materials into a bold artistic statement, this brooch exemplifies Calder’s ability to render wearable forms that merge art with everyday experience. Originally commissioned as a wedding gift for Ingeborg ten Haeff from her second husband, Paul Lester Wiener, the Reclining Bride encapsulates a moment of personal history while embodying Calder’s vision of art as deeply intertwined with life. Exhibited in prestigious retrospectives, including those at the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, this work remains a celebrated highlight of Calder’s inventive approach to materials and form.

Celebrated for his balletic mobiles and stabiles, Calder applied the same principles of balance and motion to his jewelry. Reclining Bride exemplifies his ability to imbue small, wearable objects with the same aesthetic and sculptural qualities as his larger works. Its size and composition evoke a powerful presence, challenging traditional perceptions of jewelry by transforming it into a medium for artistic expression. The brooch is more than a decorative accessory; it is an immersive, avant-garde statement that exemplifies Calder's ability to manipulate wire and glass into forms that resonate with harmony and fluidity. Moreover, the intimacy of the piece lies not only in the artist’s meticulous attention to aesthetics but also in its unique history and singular design: it includes a brass wire key, in reference to a chastity belt.

In his jewelry, Calder consistently favored readily available materials like brass and steel, and he often repurposed from found objects. This approach not only linked his jewelry to his larger sculptural practice, but also reflected a modernist ethos of accessibility and innovation. By transforming ordinary materials into extraordinary objects, Calder created pieces that engaged viewers and wearers alike, drawing them into his imaginative, Surrealist universe. Reclining Bride, with its intricate spiral design, reflects this tendency to repurpose and reinvent, while also nodding to the ancient tribal and Bronze Age motifs so admired by the artist.

“Calder’s jewelry may be seen as a sort of Surrealistic strategy to entrap the wearer into participating in an art performance, even to become bewitched. To wear the jewelry is to induce dreams and to become metamorphosed. It is typical of Calder and his art to be more allusive than first meets the eye.” 

—Mark Rosenthal

As with much of his work, Calder’s brooches, necklaces, and bracelets are imbued with a Surrealist quality that suggests they are more than mere adornments. They act as transfiguring objects, turning their wearers into participants in a kind of art performance. Reclining Bride refigures the body as a canvas, reflecting Calder’s vision of art as an interactive and participatory experience. This philosophy is further reflected in the oversized and often unwieldy forms of his jewelry, which challenges the wearer to embrace the role of a living artwork.

Over his lifetime, Calder crafted more than 2,300 pieces of jewelry, often as personal gifts for family and friends, including luminaries such as Peggy Guggenheim and Georgia O'Keeffe. His work consistently dissolved the distinctions between art and personal ornamentation, uniting them in a single artistic impulse. By elevating found materials, Calder turned each of his unique adornments into a compelling objet d’art, transcending both function and tradition. His legacy endures in the Reclining Bride brooch, a reminder that art can inhabit even the most intimate corners of life.