Dr. Saul Schluger (1908-1990) was a pioneer in the field of modern periodontics and a professor emeritus at the University of Washington, Seattle. Known affectionately to some as the “bone assassin,” Schluger established a reputation for his support for women in the profession, his innovative surgical techniques, and the design of new instruments. In 1946, he was invited by Columbia University to create the first specialty program in periodontics, and in 1958 he established the first periodontics program on the West Coast at the University of Washington School of Dentistry. During his lifetime, Schluger authored new texts, traveled and lectured extensively, and was a major influence on the modernization of his field.
His interests however extended beyond dentistry to the arts. He became the first president of the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington, Seattle and sat on the board of directors for many years. And in his travels, he, and his wife Helen, visited leading art museums, attended operas, symphonies, and theater regularly.
The present lot is among several works the Schlugers custom ordered from the jewelry artist, Sam Kramer from his studio in Greenwich Village, New York in the early 1960s. The Schulgers would travel east for one of the doctor’s lectures and collect the pieces when they were in town. Their daughter, Karen, remembers that these Kramer works were among her mother’s favorites and adorned her outfits regularly.
Well why not?...It is all to the good…just another aspect of the new medium of jewelry that offers the artist one of the richest and most rewarding environments for his own kind of expression.
Sam Kramer
Sam Kramer 1913–1964
Sam Kramer was born in and studied jewelry design in Pittsburgh. He began his career in the 1940s, peddling surrealist-inspired jewelry on the streets of Greenwich Village. He became a downtown personality, eventually establishing a shabby studio and shop full of taxidermy, swords, shells, bones, Mexican, Indian and Native American artifacts, and unusual stones and beads he salvaged from antique shops. A flyer by Kramer from this era (which were handed out on the streets by women dressed in space costumes and painted green) says that his jewelry “evolves from the dream world and the art world”. His oddball reputation did not precede him though, as he was one of the most respected mid-century jewelry designers.
