By ROBIN STANTON GERROW
BG Independent News
You may not know the name “Neil Lane,” but if you’ve ever watched a red-carpet show, you’ve seen his jewelry on stars from Lady Gaga to Jennifer Lawrence. For a short time, the glitz and glamour of Hollywood can be found in Northwest Ohio during the “Radiance & Reverie: Jewels from the Collection of Neil Lane” exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) through Jan. 18, 2026.
Lane is not only a noted jewelry designer, but also a collector of jewelry dating from the 19th and 20th century with pieces designed in Egyptian, Gothic and Renaissance Revival styles in mind.
An artist from an early age, Lane made his first trip to Paris as a young man and became mesmerized with the details and gems of jewelry he found in antique shops. There, he purchased the first piece in what became an extensive collection.
The “Radiance & Reverie” exhibition starts with that first piece and others he gathered which had been displayed at world’s fairs and other international collections.
“He spent his life as a jewelry dealer, and yet there were things that he came across over the course of his career that he fell in love with and couldn’t bear to part with, and that’s what you’re seeing here,” said co-curator Emily Stoehrer from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. “We like to say that each of these jewels has at least two stories, sometimes more. The story of its own history, being shown at world’s fairs, being owned by famous former owners, but then also Neil’s history and the rediscovery of the objects as he found them. We hope they come to life here in this space. This is probably one of the best collections of jewelry in the country and arguably the world.”
The second portion of the exhibition is the largest in his collection, highlighting pieces from Tiffany & Co. and traces the progression of the acclaimed company with studies of the natural world in the design and materials used.
Exhibit co-curator Diane Wright of the TMA explained the impact of flora and fauna on the jewelry designed by artists coming from the Tiffany studio.
“You can’t underestimate the influence of the natural world on Louie Tiffany and what was coming out of his studio,” she said. “You can see things like Tiffany lamps that were very much trying to represent flowers or something like the orchid broach that is trying to be very realistic, not only in terms of the color, but the actual accuracy of the plant specimens themselves.”
The final room of the exhibition is devoted to Hollywood glamour with vintage pieces designed for Ginger Rogers, Mae West, Joan Crawford and other film royalty.
“In the 1980s, Neil lands in Hollywood and he had been selling a lot of arts and crafts and art nouveau jewelry,” Stoehrer said. “He realized pretty quickly that wasn’t what the Hollywood clientele wanted or was interested in. They wanted what he calls glamour jewels. That’s really what he transitions to during this part of his career. In this space, you’ll see jewelry that belonged to some of the major motion picture stars who really saw jewelry as part of self-fashioning to create an on and off-screen persona. We have this great quote from Joan Crawford. ‘If you’re going to be a star, you have to look like a star. If you want to see the girl next door, go next door.’”
While many of the pieces were first seen on rising stars in the 1930s and 1940, they’ve had a second act on modern performers like Madonna, Britney Spears and Jennifer Garner.
According to Wright, this is the first time Lane’s collection has been shown as a full exhibit.
“Conversations and relationships span a long period of time before a show like this comes to fruition,” Wright said. “A former director of the Toledo Museum of Art, Don Bacigalupi, lives in Los Angeles, knows Neil and knew that Neil was looking for a place to show his collection. This is the first time it has ever been shown in its entirety, so it’s really a world premiere.”
An exhibition of this size and detail came with its own set of challenges.
“Absolutely one of the challenges of showing jewelry is that almost every single one of these pieces requires a customized mount,” Wright said. “We have over 200 individual pieces in the exhibition, and most of them are mounted in a very specific way. Lighting this kind of work and showing it in a way that you can experience something that’s very small, that you can get up close to, is really a feat.”
