| Issue #44, February 9, 2007 |
Seeing Purses
Town Wrestles With Allowing Public to Visit Judith Leiber’s Studio
By Sabrina C. Mashburn
A Judith Leiber purse is perhaps the most coveted item on any fashion-forward woman’s wish list, sometimes even outweighing Manolo Blahnik stilettos and a custom-made Burberry Trench. Like Pandora’s Box, each rhinestone encrusted confection of an accessory that emerges from Leiber’s New York workshop is so solid, so blindingly shimmering, that the mystery of what a woman holds in her purse, that little handheld window into her soul, becomes that much more of an enigma. It is perhaps because of their beautiful mystery that Leiber’s purses have been added to the permanent collections of such institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Smithsonian Institution and the Victoria and Albert Museum, elevating the clutches’ status from stunning accessories to works of modern art. Her handbags have graced every First Lady’s palm from Nancy Regan onward, and have been gifted to heads of state from the United States as examples of the finest work America has produced.
Born in Budapest in 1921, Judith Leiber longed to be the next Marie Curie and was accepted into the Chemistry program at King’s College in London. However, with the outbreak of World War II, she was forced to remain in Hungary and apply her meticulous talents to her second love, the art of handbag making. At the age of eighteen, Judith Leiber was the first woman ever accepted into the Hungarian Handbag Guild, and she studied there during the war despite her Jewish heritage, using a Swiss Schutzpass. She was also the first female to be awarded the title of Meister (master of handbag making) and soon opened her own shop in Budapest. After marrying an American soldier, Gerson Leiber, in 1946, Judith moved to New York, creating stunning accessories for fashion houses such as Nettie Rosenstein, Richard Kort and Morris Moskowitz. Soon Judith Leiber handbags were popping up under the arms of Grace Kelly and Queen Elizabeth at public ceremonies across the globe.
Like many other artists, Judith Leiber and her husband, a painter, moved to Springs in the 1950s to produce their works amid the serenity of the marshes and the inspirational presence of other artists such as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. And, just as Lee Krasner decided to open her and her husband’s studio to the public, the Leibers have submitted a proposal to East Hampton Town asking permission to allow a small number of people to walk through their studio on spring and summer weekends to enjoy an up-close and personal look at some of the Leibers’ finest work.
The idea to open their studio to the public came after the success of Judith Leiber’s traveling solo exhibition, “Fashioning Art: Handbags by Judith Leiber,” sponsored by the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Although most everyone has seen her handbags tucked prettily under the arm of a movie star, few people ever have the opportunity to see one up close. The Leibers are hoping that opening their studio, by appointment only, in the spring and summer will allow art and fashion students, professors and professionals, the opportunity to study these master works in person in order to appreciate and be inspired by their intricate detail and unique construction, factors which are less evident when the bags appear as a flash of sparkle on the TV screen. Having created more than 3,000 different designs over the course of her career, Leiber also has many pieces that few have ever seen – the new gallery will give even seasoned Judith Leiber fanatics new styles to dream about.
Of course, living in East Hampton Town, the Leibers will be subjected to angry ramblings from their neighbors and the Town Board before they are allowed to designate the thirteen parking spaces necessary to allow people to visit the gallery and studio and hire someone to work in the gallery during the spring and summer season. Using the nearby Pollock-Krasner house as an example, the Leibers do not expect more than six to ten visitors to their small gallery per weekend. Of course, the neighbors are worried about having more people coming through Springs and the possibility of the Leibers holding fundraisers on the property. As one Judith Leiber purse costs anywhere between $700 and $7,000, the Leibers have expressed that not only do they not need to hold fundraisers, but that they have never had a loud party on their property and they do not plan to start now. East Hampton seems to be waging war on art lately, refusing permission for outdoor sculptures to be erected and forcing artists to prove their productivity in order to gain permission to work in their own studios. But Judith Leiber is not one to be intimidated by overbearing regimes. A Jewish woman who displayed her art in the midst of the Nazi regime can surely manage to show her wares in East Hampton. At least, we hope so.
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