Our Miss Brooke.(Brooke Garber Neidich)

Byline: --ANDR�% LEON TALLEY

I kept running into Jane Rosenthal, a cofounder, with Robert de Niro, of the Tribeca Film Festival, wearing a delicate chain or a beautiful bespoke antique gold mesh bracelet with pave-diamond teardrops. They were the handiwork of Brooke Garber Neidich, and one morning last fall, we met at the jewelry designer's New York apartment with a stunning view of the East River.

Before settling down with espressos in her living room, we took a walking tour of her place, full of contemporary art, including gorgeous Lucio Fontana sculptures and works by Gavin Turk, Robert Gober, Richard Tuttle, Donald Judd, and Glenn Ligon. Her framed Kara Walker silhouettes, Three Characters from "8 Possible Beginnings . . ." (2005), stood out on a wall.

Neidich has had a love for jewelry since she was a child growing up in Chicago, where her father, Sidney Garber, owned a shop bearing his name. "I was always fascinated by my father's work," she says. "I went to the workshops in Paris and Italy or watched him choose stones in Idar-Oberstein, Germany. Even after I moved to New York, I would return home every Christmas and work in my father's store."

A wife, mother of three, trustee of the Whitney and Lincoln Center Theater, she's also a founder, with Harold Koplewicz, M.D., of the NYU Child Study Center, dedicated to the research and treatment of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders. (Her eldest son was diagnosed with ADHD.)

Several years ago, she accompanied ...