Gerald Charles x Igor Mitoraj – MAESTRO GC39 Mitoraj Jumping Hour Titanium Sculpture LUCI DI NARA Dial Special Edition For TimeForArt - Unique Piece 2026
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GERALD CHARLES x IGOR MITORAJ: LUCI DI NARA
For the first time in its history, Gerald Charles commits to contemporary art, creating a unique piece for TimeForArt in support of Swiss Institute
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Gerald Charles marks a first in the history of the Maison with the Maestro GC39 Mitoraj: a unique Grand Maestro Jumping Hour, and the brand's first-ever act of philanthropy dedicated to the arts, created for TimeForArt - the world's first benefit watch auction dedicated entirely to contemporary art, created by New York's Swiss Institute. Proceeds support Swiss Institute's exhibitions, artist residencies and educational programs, guided by a simple idea: artists supporting artists.
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For the first time in its history, Gerald Charles commits to contemporary art, creating a unique piece for TimeForArt in support of Swiss Institute Gerald Charles marks a first in the history of the Maison with the Maestro GC39 Mitoraj: a unique Grand Maestro Jumping Hour, and the brand's first-ever act of philanthropy dedicated to the arts, created for TimeForArt - the world's first benefit watch auction dedicated entirely to contemporary art, created by New York's Swiss Institute. Proceeds support Swiss Institute's exhibitions, artist residencies and educational programs, guided by a simple idea: artists supporting artists.
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For Gerald Charles, this was an invitation to approach the project as a genuine collaboration between disciplines, in partnership with Atelier Mitoraj and Galleria d'Arte Contini, built around the work of one of the most distinctive sculptors of his generation: Igor Mitoraj. Far from an isolated gesture, the collaboration is a natural extension of the creative legacy at the heart of the Maison - the same instinct for sculptural form and architectural boldness that Mr. Gérald Charles Genta himself instilled in the brand from its founding.
Mitoraj, a legacy returning home
Igor Mitoraj developed one of the most recognizable sculptural languages of the last century - rooted in the idealized beauty of classical Greco-Roman sculpture, yet deliberately disrupted by fragmentation and incomplete forms, speaking to human fragility and our relationship with time. Luci di Nara is particularly representative: the serenity of a classical face coexisting with its own incompleteness, where what is absent becomes as important as what remains.
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2026 lends the project a particular resonance: this June, the Museo Mitoraj opened its doors in Pietrasanta, the Tuscan city where Mitoraj lived and worked for decades - making the Maestro GC39 Mitoraj's arrival, fittingly, one of perfect timing.
Translating sculpture into a dial
Rather than reproducing Luci di Nara as a graphic image, Gerald Charles set out to translate the physical presence of Mitoraj's sculpture into the scale and architecture of a mechanical watch - a question of translation, not reproduction.
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The Grand Maestro Jumping Hour offered the ideal architecture: with the hours displayed in a guichet and a single central minute hand, the dial remains visually uninterrupted, while the jumping-hour guichet, deliberately placed asymmetrically at the top, frees the lower dial for the sculpture to occupy with real presence - breaking from traditional watchmaking symmetry in the process.
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Translating a monumental work into a component of only a few centimetres required preserving Mitoraj's recognizable expression and volumes without reducing it to illustration. The face is realized as a separate three-dimensional miniature sculpture in brass, finished in a warm 4N PVD treatment, set against a precisely machined guilloché dial. Polished 4N cabochon indexes and the Maestro's signature railway minute track complete the composition - preserving the codes of the Maestro design language even as they frame an entirely new, sculptural dial architecture.
An architecture that speaks the same language
This willingness to let form follow a bolder logic sits at the core of Gerald Charles. Since the Maison's founding by Gérald Charles Genta, watchmaking here has always been approached as much as architecture as mechanics - nowhere more visible than in the Grand Maestro case itself, whose sculpted, interlocking lines draw on the fluid dynamism of Baroque architecture, and on Francesco Borromini in particular.
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It is this same instinct - precise, dynamic, unafraid of asymmetry - that made the Maestro the natural home for Mitoraj's sculptural language.
A serious mechanical foundation
Beneath the sculptural dial lies genuine horological complexity. The Maestro GC39 Mitoraj is powered by the automatic Calibre GCA3900: 265 components, 38 jewels, operating at 4 Hz with approximately 50 hours of power reserve. The jumping hour is deceptively simple in appearance: for sixty minutes, the mechanism accumulates the energy required to advance the hour disc in a single, near-instantaneous jump - a demand the movement is engineered to manage without disturbing the stability of the regulating organ. It is precisely this complication, concentrating time within a single guichet, that frees the dial for the sculpture to dominate.
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The watch is housed in the 42 × 42 mm Grand Maestro case in polished Grade 5 titanium, just 11 mm thick, with 100 metres of water resistance and the signature screw-down crown. Its closed titanium case back is engraved with Luci di Nara after Igor Mitoraj, Mitoraj's own signature, the TimeForArt identity, an acknowledgement of Atelier Mitoraj and Galleria d'Arte Contini, and the designation PIÈCE UNIQUE - a lasting record of the collaboration behind the piece.
A work of translation
The apparent simplicity of a jumping hour conceals considerable mechanical complexity; the apparent simplicity of Mitoraj's fragmented face carries an equally profound artistic language. Bringing the two together gives this piece its particular character: artistic expression on its surface, serious horology beneath it. TimeForArt provided the purpose. Mitoraj provided the artistic language. The Grand Maestro provided the architecture. Created only once, the GC39 Mitoraj exists as a true Pièce Unique - the objective was never simply to place a work of art on a watch, but to allow the artwork and the watchmaking to become one.
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"True emotions are felt only once, each one always different from the other”, said Igor Mitoraj. A thought that lends the GC39 Mitoraj its deepest meaning: made once, and never again.
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About Gerald Charles
Maison Gerald Charles is an independent, family-owned, watch company based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 2000 by
Mr. Gérald Charles Genta, he gave his two first names to his latest
brand to create a unique bond between himself and his creations.
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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Collection: MAESTRO
Watch name : Gerald Charles MAESTRO GC39 Mitoraj - Unique piece
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Reference: GC39-TNPS-LSEN-RSDP-REM
🔰Edition Unique piece
Material: Grade 5 Titanium, polished finishing
4N PVD-treated titanium bezel
34 components
Dimensions: 42 x 42mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Screw-down crown with Clous de Paris finishing, embossed logo
Closed Grade 5 Titanium case back; Engraving: Luci di Nara after Igor Mitoraj, Mitoraj's signature and the TimeForArt identity, together with the acknowledgement of Atelier Mitoraj and Galleria d'Arte Contini.
Water-resistant to 10 ATM/100 meters
Dial
Jumping-hour guichet on the upper side, miniature sculpture face of Luci di Nara in the lower side. The face is realized as a separate three-dimensional miniature sculpture in brass; finished in a warm 4N PVD treatment.
The background features a precisely machined guilloché pattern.
Polished 4N cabochon indexes
Minuterie chemin de fer
Minute hand
Logo Gerald Charles Genève
Movement
Automatic, Swiss Manufacture Caliber GCA3900
GC Jumping Hours movement in-house development
Finishings: Bridges finely decorated with Côtes de Genève and perlage finishes. Rhodiumplated module wheels.
Thickness: 6.15mm high with JH module included
Number of parts: 265
Number of jewels: 38
Frequency: 28'800 vph - 4Hz
Power reserve of 50 hours
Functions
Anti-clockwise Jumping Hour with concentric central minutes
Strap
Taupe full-grain calfskin leather strap
Butterfly deployant buckle, polished finishing
Warranty : 2 years (extendable to 5 years following the ‘Smart Warranty’ system registration)
🔰Edition - Only of ✅ 1 - Unique piece
🔴 Price : on Request💰
Press Release - 2026
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