This auction is dedicated to the
memory of Paul Jokelson

With deep sadness and many fond memories, we are sorry to bid adieu to our dear friend and mentor Paul Jokelson. Paul passed swiftly and peacefully at his home in Scarsdale, New York, November 24, 2002, at the age of 97. Founder of the PCA (Paperweight Collectors Association), Jokelson is known to us for his lifelong enthusiasm and support for paperweights, and his trademark wry sense of humor. He has been affectionately dubbed by his friends in the paperweight world as "The King of Paperweights," partly because he single-handedly sparked the renaissance of the art form in the 20th century. He will be profoundly missed.

Paul Jokelson was born in Dunkirk, France, on January 13, 1905. His parents were Russian immigrants, and he had two older sisters, Sonia and Renee. He grew up in a comfortable home, and was introduced early to the high-quality art and craftsmanship that were to attract him throughout his life. He was born with the "collecting gene," starting with autographs, then first-edition books, and of course the paperweights which he treasured from the time of his first purchases at age 18.

Paul lived a life of varied experiences that most of us could barely imagine. He remembered World War I, although he was only a child, worked in his father's shipping line, started a magazine, drove race cars, and met many famous people, from Maurice Chevalier to Charles Lindbergh. He served in the French army in World War II, joined the underground when his name appeared on the Gestapo capture list, survived the evacuation at Dunkirk, sold grain internationally from Canada, worked on Wall Street in the New York Stock Market, developed a successful international import-export business, and negotiated for a paperweight collection in Egypt, despite a revolution going on in the country at the time. He lived in France, England, Canada, and the United States, and was a world traveler throughout his life.

Paul was a widower with one daughter, Florence, and met his second wife, Margaret, in Granville, France, in 1945. He had just finished training to become a director for UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association), which helped displaced persons after WWII. Margaret was the American nurse assigned to his team. They worked together rebuilding refugee camps and helping former prisoners reclaim their lives. Their daughter, Catherine, was born in New York in 1948, and she has always known that, despite the jokes, her mother was the great strength in her parents' marriage, the one who gave her father the opportunity to be such an amazing and unique personality.

As a young man in Paris, Paul began his love affair with paperweights with his purchase of the "Bird in the Nest" for about $25. After this first fascinating discovery in what was to become a lifelong quest, Jokelson went on to search for other paperweights in order to know more about them. But he found that after a one-hundred year hiatus in which glass paperweights fell out of vogue among collectors and glass artists, few paperweights were available, and no one knew how to make them.

So in the early1950s, Jokelson persuaded the Saint Louis and Baccarat glass factories of France to re-invent the art form. They did, and thus began the subsequent rally among glass workers worldwide to pursue this most difficult of all the glass arts, evolving into the profuse and expansive art form it is today. Paul became the U.S. importer of all Saint Louis' glass paperweight production, and remained active in this endeavor until his death.

As founder of the PCA and president from 1953 to 1981, Paul promoted and advocated for artists and dealers, as well as collectors. He founded the PCA in 1953 with 75 members, publishing the first annual PCA Bulletin in 1954. He organized and hosted the biannual PCA Convention for many years-elegant events held at upscale hotels, bringing together artists, dealers, and collectors. He also wrote and published regular PCA newsletters from September 1965 until December 1980.

--Lawrence Selman