In Memoriam: Francesco Pavan (1937–2025)

Francesco Pavan died in his sleep on 17 July 2025, in the Padua he loved. He was 87. As one of the founders of the Padua School, he redefined the concept of the art jewel and influenced generations of artists.

His relationship with Galerie Marzee was a profound and reciprocal one. In 2003, he received the Marzee Prize, and his work forms part of the Marzee Collection. The gallery also published the monograph Francesco Pavan: Geometric Abstraction in Art Jewellery.

Pavan’s work was characterised by restraint and geometric precision. Working with a limited palette of gold, silver and copper, he created jewellery that was not merely decorative, but conveyed ideas.

A Teacher and a Man of Broad Knowledge

Francesco was not only a master goldsmith, but also a much-loved teacher and a generous man. For many decades, he taught at the art school where he had studied, the Istituto Statale d’Arte Pietro Selvatico. There, he influenced and encouraged generations of jewellery artists.

His knowledge extended well beyond goldsmithing. He was equally at home in the arts and the sciences, approaching his work with the precision of a scientist and the sensitivity of an artist.

He often listened to Das Wohltemperierte Klavier while he worked. The music of Johann Sebastian Bach became part of the daily rhythm of his studio, lending its rituals a sense of structure and beauty.

Francesco’s studio in Padua stood just around the corner from the city’s Botanical Garden, the oldest academic botanical garden in the world. He knew every plant and flower there and took pleasure in its natural beauty every day.

That relationship with nature found its way into his work – not so much through the outward appearance of leaves and flowers, but through their deeper structures: the architecture of the stem and the pattern of the veins, pure and orderly.

He was fascinated by the natural world. Whenever we walked through the botanical garden, he would point out structures and patterns: the arrangement of petals, for example, or the network of veins revealed when a leaf was held up to the light. The garden was an inexhaustible source of inspiration.

The Basilica di Sant’Antonio, just 50 metres from his studio, was another source of geometric discoveries. Nature and architecture – and particularly the underlying structures and techniques concealed within them – were always important sources for Francesco. So too were Giotto’s famous frescoes in the Cappella degli Scrovegni in Padua.

For him, the frescoes mattered not only because of what they depicted, but also because Giotto represented an early turning point in the use of geometric perspective in painting. Visitors normally had to book several days in advance to enter the chapel, but Francesco always seemed to know how to arrange an immediate visit.

Marie-José van den Hout

An International Legacy

Pavan’s jewellery is held in prestigious museum collections around the world, including:

• Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, United States

• Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum, Munich, Germany

• Helen Williams Drutt Collection, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, United States

• Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, Germany

• Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, United States

• Marzee Collection, Nijmegen, the Netherlands

• Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France

• Museo del Gioiello di Vicenza, Vicenza, Italy

• Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston, United States

• Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, Pforzheim, Germany

This international representation confirms Pavan’s position as one of the foremost masters of the Padua School and a pioneer of contemporary art jewellery.

We do not wear his jewellery only around our necks or on our fingers. We carry his ideas, his precision and his silence with us. In every geometric form, every link and every restrained line, Francesco lives on.

Francesco Pavan (Padua, 1937–2025) will be commemorated at Galerie Marzee from 22 November 2025 to 27 January 2026.