Trunk Show: Exquisite Jewelry by Masha Archer

Masha Archer was born in Kyiv, Ukraine to Sophia and Mykola Muchin, both artists and teachers of painting and sculpture at the Kyiv and Kharkiv Art Institutes. After spending the post WWII years in Europe, they emigrated to the United States in 1949. Masha resides in San Francisco.

Among her clients are Barbara Walters, Laura Bush, Beyonce, Gladys Knight, Iris Apfel, Ivana Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Sex and the City: The Movie, and Harrison Ford.

Museums that have shown her works include Kyiv’s Pecherska Lavra, the Smithsonian in Washington DC, Arizona Fine Arts Museum in Tucson, the Hammer Museum and the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles, and the Taos Museum of Fine Art in New Mexico. The Ukrainian embassy in Washington DC honored Masha sponsoring an exhibit of her designs presented at the Alla Rogers Gallery. This exhibit included a bronze casting made by her father entitled “Kichkass,” the monumental version of which remains in Ukraine. Masha’s designs have contributed to the theater, such as Cleveland’s Great Lakes Theater Festival production of “Antony and Cleopatra” in 1996, and the Opera Manhattan concert production of Massenet’s “Cleopatra” at Sarah Lawrence College and Alice Tully Hall. Her pieces were featured in ‘Sex and the City’ as well as ‘Confessions of a Shopaholic.’ On television her jewelry has appeared on ‘Bones,’ ‘Martha Stewart’s Living,’ ‘Burn Notice,’ and ‘Anderson Cooper Live.’ Ukrainian filmmaker Gyorgy Vlasenko directed and produced a 28 minute documentary about Masha’s life, ‘The Ritual of the Eye,’ which was broadcast on TV in 175 cities across Europe.

Photo credit: Enrique Vega (reproduction prohibited without permission).