Sevan Bicakci by Vivienne Becker.

This book is: a gorgeously-illustrated look at the life, inspiration, and work of Turkish master jeweler Sevan Bicakci.
Other elements: the culture of art and artistry in Turkey, incredible jewelry.
Read it: if you love jewelry, art, beautiful things, the Ottoman aesthetic, or just enjoy gorgeous images.
Overall rating: 9/10

I was crazy excited when I heard that this book was happening, and I’m pretty sure that you will be too, my readers. After all, I know you’re fans of his work: one of my posts on Sevan has been in my top 5 most popular articles for weeks, if not months.

Assouline’s just-released Sevan Bicakci book is a perfectly-balanced mix of jaw-dropping photos of the artist’s jewels and backstory about his life, processes, and inspiration.

The author, Vivienne Becker, is a veteran of high-caliber jewelry publications and her experience and expertise are obvious in the clarity of the writing, the perfect pace at which is proceeds, and the wealth of detail she provides about just the right subjects. Becker begins with a short introduction and then walks the reader through three sections: Sevan Bicakci’s life, his aesthetic inspirations, and finally the jewels themselves. I found it fascinating and enlightening to learn more about how Sevan became the artist he is, and frankly mind-blowing to learn more about how he creates his iconic reverse-intaglio dome rings.

Speaking of Sevan’s iconic designs: it would be remiss of me not to make a big enough fuss about the incredible photography in this book. It’s probably worth reading even if you don’t understand English, just to have the chance to see such wonderful photographs of such stunning, once-in-a-lifetime jewels.

You see my point?

You’ll appreciate the photographs even more once you learn from the book about Sevan Bicakci’s habit of keeping his most spectacular, award-winning pieces for his own collection. The new Assouline Sevan Bicakci book truly feels like a glimpse of something rare and wonderful, and that’s exactly what it is.

If any of you are looking for a non-jewelry gift for a jewelery or art lover in your life, I think this would be an inspired choice.

My sincere thanks to Dan at Studio PR for providing me with a review copy of the beautiful Sevan Bicakci book.

 

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