Eye to eye

he “Eyeglasses” exhibition, which opened at the Holon Museum of Design is a real eye-opener.

DECEMBER 22, 2016 21:08

Lavishly crafted late 20th-century spectacles created by German designer Niki Boden (photo credit: ELI BOHBOT) — Lavishly crafted late 20th-century spectacles created by German designer Niki Boden

(photo credit: ELI BOHBOT)

I am at the time of life, and of the genetic baggage, when I can’t get by without my specs. They are, indeed, a handy accoutrement without which I would find it tough to manage, but a trip over to the Holon Museum of Design reveals that glasses can serve a far wider role than just making sure you can decipher newspaper print, or simply get from point A to point B without smacking your knee against some pesky protuberance.

The “Eyeglasses” exhibition, which opened at the Holon establishment on Tuesday, and will run until the end of April, is – pardon the pun – a real eye-opener. The display, which is curated by Maya Dvash, takes in around 400 artifacts culled from the vast collection lovingly accrued by French-born optometrist Claude Samuel. All told, Samuel’s hoard incorporates some 1,300 items.

The earliest exhibit dates back to the 17th century, and the specs and associated apparatus span the last four centuries and feature some patently here-and-now works, and several wacky gizmos that should both raise a smile and get a rise out of your eyebrows.

Samuel’s family has been in the eyesight-enhancing sector for quite some time. “My great-grandmother used to go around the market in Paris – we’re talking about the late 19th century- early 20th century,” says the collector.

“She’d test people’s eyesight and make up the simplest, cheapest glasses for them, with a spring mechanism.”

Great-grandma’s line of work was handed down the generations, and Samuel’s grandmother and grandfather also engaged in the profession, initially from a store in Strasbourg, before relocating to Paris.

Feeling that the business in the eastern French town could do with a bit of promotional boost, Samuel’s grandparents tried out a cunning publicity stunt.

“They sent a pince-nez piece to the president of France, after which they put a sign on the store that said: ‘Suppliers to the President of France,’” Samuel laughs. Unfortunately, the self-generated presidential “endorsement” did not spark the hoped-for flood of orders, and the couple moved to the capital to try their luck there.

Samuel not only inherited an interest in spectacles and associated devices and paraphernalia, he says dexterity also runs through the family.

“My father had wonderful hands,” he notes proudly. “My grandmother would go out and get people to order glasses and, as a boy of 13 or so, he would work in the kitchen at home and he’d cut the lenses on a stone platform.” The grandmother’s charming case of lenses has pride of place in the current exhibition.

The collector’s father’s adroitness stood him in good existential stead during World War II, and he survived the Holocaust as a member of Sixième, the French Jewish Resistance, operating as a counterfeiter and producing accurate fake documents that helped to save the lives of many Jews. It is safe to say that, without that skill, “Eyeglasses” would not have come into being, nor would the collector. “My mother came from a wealthy aristocratic family, and my father made fake documents for her and her family,” Samuel explains.

“That’s how they met.”

Behind every worthwhile collection, there is always a bunch of gripping stories, and the Samuel compilation is no different. Even so, naturally, it is the aesthetics of the exhibits that really grabs you, as well as the obvious creativity, inventiveness and resourcefulness that shine through every object in the display cases. The combination of the visual aspect and the personal angle are what make Samuel tick, and also reflects his professional ethos.

“The [spectacle] frame is an object that conveys a message, and they don’t always go together – the person and the object,” he notes. “A person sometimes doesn’t look the way they want to look.

Part of the role of the professional who receives the client, after he gets the prescription, is also to try to understand the person in question, and to try to free him [from personal preconceptions].

I find that fascinating. Eventually, the commercial side of my clinic became a sort of icon of the culture of spectacles.”

Over the years Samuel developed an interest in all kinds of ophthalmologic contraptions. “Around 15 years ago I began to consider purchasing all sorts of complementary objects, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t collect things before that. In the 1980s, I’d take old cheap pairs of spectacles, which people had thrown away, because I thought they may be an icon of that period. I do that to this day.”

Archeologists of the future may, indeed, come across one of Samuel’s pieces from three decades ago and excitedly note the style, material and other details that will place the find in a particular time frame of human civilization. But “Eyeglasses” also offers the current observer a plethora of titillating and alluring eyefuls, which Samuel has deftly garnered with great skill and, above all, love.

Take, for example, an apparatus for self-eye testing from the early 20th century. The circular, drum-like device is made of metal and walnut wood, and makes for tasteful and inviting viewing. And then there is an exquisitely crafted art-nouveau style lorgnette – spectacles used for getting a better sight of the onstage action in a theater or opera production – which dates to late 19th-century France. Elsewhere in the same exhibition category, but clearly the product of a different era and mindset, you can find an early 20th-century collapsible opera viewing device made of metal, cloth and leather.

There are some weird and wonderful items in the Samuel offering, too, from all sorts of eras. If, for example, one of Sherlock Holmes’s predecessors found himself attending a theater show to do some surreptitious sleuthing, naturally in the company of a suitably attired lady, the detective may very well have equipped his companion for the evening with something along the lines of the early 18th-century opera fan, complete with spy eyepiece, in the Holon museum show. And while we’re on the subject of espionage, the accessories artifacts also include an early 20th-century walking stick that houses a hidden eyepiece.

Dvash says she and Samuel were keen to offer the public a wide perspective on the subject matter. “We did our best to avoid putting on an exhibition based on a predictable historical time line continuum,” she explains. “It was important for us to present what we call cultural stations. By that I mean points at which spectacles had the main role.”

Spectacles are also a very personal item. “We also wanted to present glasses from the point of view of the persons themselves, to give the exhibition a human slant,” she adds.

The show is divided into a number of categories. “The first station in the exhibition approaches the subject from a medical point of view, in terms of correcting vision,” Dvash continues. “Spectacles were originally a corrective appliance, and only later became a fashion item.”

The latter is certainly a prominent element in “Eyeglasses.” Pop and rock fans over the age of, say, 50 may recall some of the amazing creations worn by megastar singer-pianist Elton John, and the Holon show has a pair of his specs on display. There is also a delightful set with guitars rising out of each lens, while the early 19th-century item, with narrow slats instead of magnifying lenses, was apparently used by Eskimos for protection during snow blizzards.

There is more to spectacles, it seems, than meets the eye.

For more information: (03) 215-1515 and www.dmh.org.il