Mary Lee Hu studied metalwork and jewelry at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and earned a graduate degree in metalsmithing from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale in 1965. Her studies here also included a fiber arts course which led to the creation of her signature use of textile techniques in jewelry by weaving, wrapping and knitting silver or gold wire. Hu often found inspiration in Taiwanese and Tibetan art as well in natural forms including insects and animals. The present lot is a fine early characteristic example of her work, from the personal collection of the renowned enamelist June Schwarcz.

Mary Lee Hu’s works are in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Columbus Museum of Fine Arts, Ohio; and the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, among others.