Jewellery Books

Book SynopsisWhile looking into her genealogy, particularly the Cumberbatches from Barbados, Helen Ashton discovered the silversmith Omar Ramsden and his connection to her family. Omar Ramsden and fellow Sheffield-born designer Alwyn Carr set up a partnership in 1898 moving to London to exploit the fashionable taste for handmade silver of the Arts and Crafts Movement and, with the help of skilled artisans, made articles adapted from Gothic and Renaissance designs with Celtic-style inscriptions, which became their trademark. A fascinating story, painstakingly researched following one of the most successful silversmithing collaborations of the 20th century. Helen’s interest became a fascinating obsession, resulting in three years of research to find out about his family background in Sheffield and his long partnership.

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Book SynopsisThe Padua School originated from the Istituto Pietro Selvatico in Padua. The distinctive features of this jewelry are the use of gold reminiscent of the goldsmith's art in antiquity and a modern and abstract formal expression within the group. Mario Pinton, who brought the goldsmith movement international recognition and acclaim in the 1950s and '60s, is credited with founding the experimental goldsmith movement in Padua. Francesco Pavan has enlarged the scope of the Padua School with his kinetic and geometric formal idiom. The breakthrough on the international jewelry scene took place in the late 1960s with Giampaolo Babetto, under whose support the geometric and Minimalist tendency was most pronounced. Other distinguished artists in jewelry such as Graziano Visintin, Renzo Pasquale, Annamaria Zanella, Stefano Marchetti and Giovanni Corvaya continued along these lines or went their own highly individual ways by experimenting with the use of new materials including plastic. The work of these crea

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Book SynopsisGabriela Koschatzky-Elias writes absorbingly on the life and work of Fritz Maierhofer, one of the most important contemporary Austrian jewellery artists, whose international career took off in late-1960s London. Under the sway of that throbbing city, he had arrived at a conception of jewellery and a language of forms that were distinctively his own. Maierhofer places jewellery on an equal footing with painting, sculpture and architecture. What is crucial to him is the artistic intention rather than the market value of the materials used. Maierhofer keeps coming up with new statements - using acrylic glass and precious metals in the 1970s, pewter and gold in the 1980s and, in the 1990s, aluminium, steel and computer technology while his most recent work features the new material CORIAN®. A new publication in our Art Jewellery Series, this is the first comprehensive monograph surveying Fritz Maierhofer's work from the 1960s to the present. With superlative colour illustrations and texts by a group of distinguished specialists in the field (including Ralph Turner and Graziella Folchini Grassetto). Text in German and English.

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Book Synopsis"Just Must" (in Estonian: "black and nothing but") was the theme of a jewellery exhibition in Tallinn in 2008, initiated and organised by the Estonian professor of jewellery Kadri Mälk. Fifty-eight artists from eighteen countries presented their own, widely varying, individual solutions to this subject as documented in the present book. The jewellery shown here is "black" on the one hand because dark or black materials such as jet, ebony or black diamonds have been used to make it. But it is also "black" in the figurative sense, for example in the way it deals with existential problems. Pieces such as Konrad Mehus' gold Valium-dispenser brooch, Tanel Veenre's "Guilty Conscience" or Francis Willemstijn's "The Widow" are overtly about human anxieties, cares and crises. A "Dark Painting" by Tore Svensson, on the other hand, is just what the title says: a black painting that can be worn as a brooch. The approaches taken by these artists to the "black" theme documents the avant-garde stance represented in their art works: jewellery is no longer viewed as merely decorative or a status symbol whose value depends solely on the material of which it is made. Instead it becomes a vehicle for expressing aesthetic ideas by means of unconventional materials and forms. Artists featured: Robert Baines (Australia); Manfred Bischoff (Italy); Peter Chang (UK); Giovanni Corvaja (Italy); Johanna Dahm (Switzerland); Karl Fritsch (Germany); Mari Funaki (Japan); Therese Hilbert (Germany); Rian de Jong (the Netherlands); Otto Künzli (Germany); Kadri Mälk (Estonia); Ruudt Peters (the Netherlands); Karen Pontoppidan (Denmark); Ramón Puig Cuyàs (Spain). Text in English & Estonian.

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Book SynopsisAs used in German, the French word 'collier' denotes a particularly valuable form of neck jewellery - it represents a promise and betokens dignity to the woman wearing it. This is the sense in which Dorothea Pruhl lays claim to the term for her jewellery. Spaciously gestural, Dorothea Pruhl takes full advantage of the powers of persuasion inherent in what is only seemingly a simple form. Her feeling for form, schooled as it is on the Classic moderns, is based on a sculptural idea and takes proportion and scale into account. Concentration on essentials, empathy in the extreme and vigorous plasticity are the distinguishing features of her works. They are the critically reflected expression of an entirely subjective artistic agenda. More or less recognisable, the object visualised contains no subliminal messages: hence it permits no interpretations containing extrinsic references. These are works that are exactly what they purport to be. They are not ambivalent. There is no narration, none at all.

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Book SynopsisFrom the latter half of the nineteenth century, Idar-Oberstein developed into an important centre of costume jewellery production. Numerous factories, large and small, produced costume jewellery for the world into the 1980s although today this trade has virtually lost its former significance. During that long time span, Idar-Oberstein was one of the four major German jewellery centres along with Pforzheim, Schwabisch Gmund and Hanau. Idar-Oberstein costume jewellery reflects each of the prevailing fashions in turn: Historicism, Jugendstil/Art Nouveau, Art Deco - to 1960s and 1970s Informel and Zero. Innovative handling of simple (inexpensive) materials soon led to an aesthetic that stood on its own merits, independently of 'real' jewellery. Here the Bengel company - with its sophisticated Art Deco jewellery - exemplifies innovative models and business policy. The author was able to study many early documents and photographs in Idar-Oberstein archives as well as pieces of jewellery that, taken together, are highly instructive on the history of costume jewellery. A vivid image of twelve jewellery manufacturers is evoked; proprietors and employees, production conditions, models policy, pieces of jewellery in each period style and worldwide marketing and distribution. Costume jewellery from Idar-Oberstein was not usually marked (stamped) because it was sold through wholesalers; this is what makes attribution to specific makers quite difficult today.

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Book SynopsisA key, a safety pin, a balloon, a propeller, a voltmeter - these unexpected objects in art jewellery rewrite the world of the Norwegian "jewellery engineer" Sigurd Bronger. He carries over his fascination for machines and instruments in humorously constructed jewellery pieces, and transforms natural materials and everyday objects into meticulously executed, complex and ingenious constructions. In his Oslo "Laboratorium Mechanum", Bronger works on his witty "carrying devices" - brooches, pendants, and rings with balloons, sponges, eggs, even his mother's gallstones, or with medical equipment, which have a greater positive effect on the mind than on the physical well-being. An established feature of his work, which symbolically marks the entrance into Bronger's world, is the key. This current publication offers such a key; a review of over thirty years of his creative work: from Bronger's experiments with materials and constructions in the struggle with the avant-garde Dutch art jewellery to his attempts in fathoming out states of expansion and emptiness in jewellery. He revolutionised contemporary creative jewellery work in such a way, not just in Norway, where to this day he still finds new forms of expression at the interface of jewellery, art, design and engineering. With works from the 1980s to the present day, this book will carry you off into the humorous world of the decorative engineering art of Sigurd Bronger, one of the most significant Norwegian jewellery artists today. Text in English, German & Norwegian.

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Book SynopsisFrom the Coolest Corner - Nordic Jewellery presents groundbreaking and fresh jewellery from Northern Europe, a comprehensive selection of current works by artists from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the Baltic States. The best and most innovative Scandinavian art jewellery is presented, assessing its possibilities and potential at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The project presented in this publication, culminating in a symposium and a travelling exhibition, challenges stereotypical notions of northern European art jewellery. Do the typical Nordic trends of the nineteen-nineties still apply today? Indeed are there currently any general trends at all in Scandinavian design? Or has the orientation towards international design become so dominant that there are no longer any regional characteristics? Renowned experts have made a selection of representative works, as a basis for researching the role of northern European jewellery in the context of international art. Text in English, Norwegian & Swedish.

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Book SynopsisThe Danner Rotunde, the jewellery room in the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, was opened in 2004. Ambitious activities by the Danner-Stiftung and Die Neue Sammlung - The Design Museum, with the support of renowned jewellery artists such as Hermann Jünger, Otto Künzli and Peter Skubic, bore the fruit of two globally renowned jewellery collections. Today these comprise far in excess of 1,700 jewellery items, presented in pictures for the first time in this synopsis. Interviews with the creative minds behind these two unique collections in the field of studio jewellery enable insights into a previously unknown history, and an illustrated chronology arrives at astonishing results. Biographies on more than 300 jewellery artists also present those who have been virtually forgotten today. An indispensable compendium on the subject of contemporary jewellery art. Text in English and German.

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Book SynopsisUnder the ambiguous term HUNT (English: the hunt; Estonian: the wolf), Kadri Mälk unites her collection of contemporary art jewellery. As a lone wolf, the Estonian artist and teacher compiled the pieces in her eternal hunt for beauty, mystery and creativity. Since jewellery is designed to be worn, Mälk's fellow artists are not only immortalised in these works; they also pose in portraits alongside their favourite pieces. The jewellery is thus brought to life on the bodies of the collector's friends and companions. Text in English and Estonian.

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Book SynopsisFor years David Watkins has been a primal force to be reckoned with in contemporary jewellery design, a mover and shaker in this new international medium. This book is just what the retrospective aficionados of art jewellery have been waiting for. Watkins is the medals designer for the 2012 Olympics in London. This book represents the first retrospective in print on the fascinating work of the English artist in jewelry David Watkins, who started out as a jazz pianist and sculptor but has been designing jewelry since the 1960s. At the outset of his career, he designed miniature works of sculpture. Later he began producing outsize wearable objects. Watkins is increasingly preoccupied with the interrelationship of the body and jewelry; his pieces of jewelry are becoming autonomous art objects in their own right. David Watkins's versatility as a jewelry-designer is astonishing: the diverse materials he uses range from paper to acrylic, Neoprene and Colorcore to gold as well as a profusion of plastics. His aesthetic "idiom" encompasses stringent structuring as well as monochrome Minimalism and compositions improvised in stunning forms and vibrant colors. Watkins is equally comfortable working with traditional jewelry-making techniques and computer-aided design as used throughout the manufacturing sector. Drawing on a wealth of photographs, drawings and statements made by the artist himself, the book provides invaluable insights into the way David Watkins works.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisJewelry was worn by ancient Egyptians at every level of society and, like their modern descendants, they prized it for its aesthetic value, as a way to adorn and beautify the body. It was also a conspicuous signifier of wealth, status, and power. But jewelry in ancient Egypt served another fundamental purpose: its wearers saw it as a means to absorb positive magical and divine powers—to protect the living, and the dead, from the malignant forces of the unseen. The types of metals or stones used by craftsmen were magically important, as were the colors of the materials, and the exact positioning of all the elements in a design. Ancient Egyptian Jewelry: 50 Masterpieces of Art and Design draws on the exquisite collections in the archaeological museums of Cairo to tell the story of three thousand years of jewelry-making, from simple amulets to complex ritual jewelry to the spells that protected the king in life and assisted his journey to the Otherworld in death. Gold, silver, carnelian, turquoise, and lapis lazuli were just some of the precious materials used in many of the pieces, and this stunningly illustrated book beautifully showcases the colors and exceptional artistry and accomplishment that make ancient Egyptian jewelry so dazzling to this day.Trade Review"The photography is crisp, clear, modern and very attractive: it makes you observe the jewelry in another way. . . [and] the book provides, seemingly in passing, an enormous amount of information about religion, economy, trade, history and craftsmanship."—Bedouin Silver"Beautifully illustrated...inherently fascinating and impressively informative."—Midwest Book Review"Highlights fifty of the most beautiful pieces of jewelry ever created—anywhere."—Ancient Egypt Magazine"Stunning" —AramcoWorldTable of ContentsIntroduction: Ancient Egyptian Jewelry Ancient Egyptian Jewelry: 50 Masterpieces The Bracelets of Horus Djer Carnelian Necklace with a Lion Head Amulet The Butterfly Bracelets of Queen Hetepheres Jewels of Princess Khnemet Khnemet’s Motto Bracelets Falcon Collar with Amulets Bracelet Clasps of Khnemet Princess Ita’s Dagger Necklace with a Pectoral of Senwosret II Bracelets of Queen Weret Cowrie Shell Belt Queen Weret’s Motto Necklace A Queen’s Bracelets and Anklets Pectoral of Senwosret III Diadem of a Princess Sithathoriunet’s Mirror Cowrie Shells and Acacia Seeds Mereret’s Feline Girdle Anklets with Claw Pendants Pendant of a Princess Neferuptah’s Collar Pectoral of Amenemhat III A Necklace with Fly Pendants Queen Ahhotep’s Bracelet Ahmose’s Armlet A Queen’s Bracelets The Ankh Sign A Glass Kohl Holder A General’s Earring Pectoral of an Official Gold Statuette of Tutankhamun Tutankhamun’s Daggers A Falcon Pendant Necklace Necklace with a Lunar Boat Tutankhamun’s Vulture Pectoral Pectoral of Nut Bracelets of Rameses the Great Seti II’s Earrings Pasebkhanut’s Necklace Pectoral of Pasebkhanut A General’s Pendant The Goddess Isis Pectoral of Sheshonq I Sheshonq’s Wedjat Bracelets Pectoral of Sheshonq II Pendant Head of Hathor Pendant of Maat A Necklace of Many Pendants A Young Woman’s Jewelry Diadem of Serapis Afterword and Further Reading

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