The David Oscarson 25th Anniversary (or Silver Anniversary) collection shown on the next three pages are sterling silver fountain pens with 10 translucent and opaque hard enamel colors over 15 sections of guilloche engraving. Shown at left and on our cover is the 25th Anniversary Diamond and Gold Nouveau Special Edition, which features diamonds along the surface and a solid 18 karat yellow gold body.
For many years now, I've had the honor of writing about the magnificent art by David Oscarson that has so captivated our fountain pen community. The work demands precision and delicacy. His mastery of guilloche and hot enamel is unparalleled, and "David Oscarson" has now become synonymous with excellence and luxury. Beyond the physical incarnation of each fountain pen, Oscarson offers something more: intellectual fascination and an implicit artist dialogue with his customers. Thenty-five years is an accomplishment for any enterprise, but to maintain this level of artistic mastery for that long speaks to something special: a quality that goes beyond the physical and enters the spiritual.
From the moat elemental variables of life in the form of celestial bodies to historically complex figures, documents, and events, Oscarson's art seeks to engage with every aspect of existence as we know it. For a quarter of a century, Oscarson's fountain pens have exceeded all expectations. Having written about his ant for many years now, I am in the lucky position of being able to watch, in real-time, Oscarwon's artistic expansion and the evolution of his techniques.
To celebrate this huge milestone, Oscarson has released the 25ch Silver Anniversary Collection, which also harkens to the movement of Art Nouveau. Crafted from solid sterling silver, the fountain pen incorporates 10 colors of translucent and opaque hard enamels over 15 sections of guilloche engraving. Each and every component is guilloche engraved, repeatedly kiln fired, and filed carefully by hand. A special edition version (left features a solid 18-karat yellow gold body and diamonds along the surface.
The theme of the cap and clip memorializes Rend Lalique Dragonfly Wornan courage, made for the farmed actress Sara Bernhardt and displayed at the Worlds Fair in Paris, France, in 1900. Art that decorates the barrel is a reproduction of Alphonse Mucha's lithograph master-piece, Amown as "La Plume ("The Pent), from 1899. Every grip section is adorned with inlaid opaque hard enamel. A cabochon oryx accents the top and bottom of each 25th Silver Anniversary Collection writing treatment. Available in nine primary color variations, only 25 pieces will be produced (including both fountain pen and rollerball styles).
Far left and left-25th Anniversary Art Nouveau fountain pens in Alabaster and Translucent Onyx.
From above-details of the Dragonfly-Woman inspired clip and cap; grip section with enamel scrollwork and bicolor 18 karat gold nib; "La Plume" Inspired barrel design; black onyx stones are inset at the cap and barrel ends Lalique's Dragonfly-Woman brooch to Art Nouveau by design. A hybrid of woman and dragonfly, the piece is meant to be awe-taping in the truest sense of the word: both beautiful and frightening. The Fure is composed of large gold and enamel dragons with carefully articulated open wings along with an incredibly time opal enamel design embellished by diamonds, moonstones, and enamel work. A chrysoprase female body appears from the mouth of the street, wearing a hehe bearing two enameled gold beetles.
The alim body of the insect is enameled gold and sports chalcedorry en cabochon. The Woman-Dragonfly also features griffin's claw. The contrasts, binaries, and contradictions in the piece are all fairly typical of the artistic movement at the time.
Art Nouveau developed throughout Europe and beyond, and multiple points of origin have been identified, proving that the movement was mostly organic and arose from multiple strands." Because of this, it is known by many names, including the Glasgow Style and Jagendstil. In an attempt to move past previously embraced historical styles, Art Nouveau sought to modernize art. Artists employed both organic and geometric forms to create a chic style that mimicked natural shapes, stems, and blossoms, for instance, and focused on linear contours over color, opting instead for more muted tones of greens, yellows, browns, and blues. The artistic movement sought to prove that the prevailing academic insistence on artistic hierarchy, which placed craft-based decorative art near the bottom with more traditional "fine art at its crown--was absurd and arbitrary. Art Nouveau considered previous styles excessive and even frivolous and emphasized that utility should determine artistry. The movement believed that an object's function should determine its form. The style had mostly receded by World War 1, overtaken by the Art Deco movement.
The David Oscarson Silver Armiversery collection reflects the Art Nouveau artistic ideal. What is more practical and necessary than a pen? What happens when we take the ordinary, the everyday, and male it as an object d'art? The job of the pen is to write, but that need not echo aesthetics. Art Norweau thought utility and beauty could eodst at once, Oncarson proves this every year with his magnificent foumbain pen art. Organise curves and natural forms grace the surface of each pen, imitating nature in a shape and line.
A close observer of Oecarson's work will notice a shift in the last few years from the material to the ephemeral, from broad topics to intimate memories, and from the physical to the spiritual. The early years of Oscaron's company in 2008 brought a furry of creativity. He explored the biography of Henrik Wigstrom, the Finish artisan who was an essential contributor to the House of Faberge, well known for his detailed, impeccable Russian Imperial eggs, among other masterpieces. The fountain pen collections guilloche work horrors the main type of artistry Wigstrom employed in the creation of his Ruseier Imperial eggs and other objects de maintaining. An aesthetic triumph, the Wigstrom fountain pen collection focused on beauty and art in it purest form.
A nod to the seasons arrived in 2004 with his Harvest fountain pen, followed closely by an examination of the physical cosmos, the Celestial collection. From each phase of the moon to the burst of light engraved in high and low relief to capture the dimensionality of light itself, the collection was wholly darling. Consider the Lites mentioned here because this writer loves the item, and the name it was a 10-year anniversary edition. The lies, pads, and leaves adorn the fountain pen, which again uses guilloche engraving to distinguish one lily from another in sunlight. It emulates nature's ability to break mark boundaries and hide them, the mysterious pattern of nature on full display.
In the following years, Oscarson released the Lewis and Clark collection, a tribute to the great adventures of the clue. In doing so, Oscarson traces his own American heritage and the explorers' intrepid expedition, which allowed us to intimately know the land. A sixth-anniversary collection based on the Art Deco movement touched on the accumulation of work Oscarson had made to that point: the first collection to incorporate 15 sections of guilloche engraving, taken from 10 of the pen designs he had produced up until that point.
In 2019. Oscarson made a move toward spirituality with his Lord Ganesha pen, a departure from the abstract artistic and historical topics he had pursued theretofore; in Hindu mythology, Lord Ganesha, the first son of Lord Shiva, has a human body with an elephant's head with a single broken tunk. The large head and ears indicate the metaphorical need to listen in order to grow. In the most typical scene, a large amount of food is on his feet, alongside a rat who gazes at Lerd Gamesha as though seeking permission to eat. So many references rum through the pen that to name them all is impossible. Writing with this pen allows the user to contemplate the larger truths of existence and reality,
In a revealing release, Oscarson’s Take It to the Limit collection was an intimate glimpse into his life, family, and spirit. The song by the Eagles (and its glorious fountain pen counterpart) is a striking paean to simple love, car trips, and summer. Oscarson will acknowledge that, as his career continues, he has become more willing to state his most deeply held beliefs. One of his most astonishing and meaningful pieces, the Deus Regit, is a close examination of his faith and its many dimensions. A glimpse at the fountain pen allows a peek at Oscarson’s very soul—and it is (unsurprisingly) beautiful. The Deus Regit fountain pen is perhaps the most striking in meaning—a full spiritual profile of David Oscarson. Most recently, his Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling collection revealed even more about Oscarson: as a boy, he felt like that lonely, exiled duckling in a completely foreign environment. It’s reassuring to know that even those who seem perfect have felt, at one point or another, like total outsiders. This acknowledgment of vulnerability is another way in which Oscarson’s career has expanded, and it aids us in truly knowing the artist, allowing a special kind of bond between the customer and the artisan.
For 25 years and counting, David Oscarson has offered us writing instruments that educate and entertain us while at the same time enchanting us with his fountain pens’ beauty and his mastery of guilloche and hot enamel work. Next is an exploration of space vis a vis man; a pursuit of humanity’s connection with the intricate, clocklike machine that is the universe. The Edwin Hubble collection, soon to be available, connects man with the heavens in a purely scientific way. Hubble observed that the universe is constantly expanding; prior to his eureka moment, the universe was considered static and limited to the Milky Way. In learning that other galaxies exist and are at all times moving away from us, Hubble’s Law was birthed: the velocity of an object receding from an observer is exactly proportional to its distance from said observer.
Space and time are on Oscarson’s mind. The universe he has created is one of great charm, where knowledge and spirit join aesthetics in importance. The 25th Silver Anniversary collection, an Art Nouveau tour de force, is the culmination of a quarter century’s inspiration and grueling artistry. His life and spirit are reflected in these objects, both magical and practical. Art Nouveau embraces this mix of the ordinary and the ephemeral—a paradigm in which everyday use meets stunning beauty. Oscarson is always contemplating, orchestrating, or creating, and I, for one, can’t wait to see what the next David Oscarson collection brings us.
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