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.
