Jewelry Lovers

The Bauhaus continued to influence art and design establishments throughout Europe, particularly in Britain and Holland, during this period. Designers searched for forms that would be minimalist, universal and democratic. Artists and craftsmen saw themselves as ‘pioneers who were liberating the world from the bonds of tradition’. Studio Crafts were established in art schools in America, Australia and Britain. These were small workshops experimenting with alternative jewelry forms.

In Holland, there were debates concerning the value, status and production methods of jewelry made from less precious materials. Jewelers such as Gijs Bakker and Emmy van Leersum sought to bridge the gap between people and their technological, industrial environment. They made objects out of industrial materials such as black rubber and stainless steel, highly crafted and finished to achieve an original effect. Both form and construction were economic. Bakker described the thinking behind his arm bangle, designed to be almost invisible except by the imprint it left on the skin, as follows:

‘The imprint has the function of a piece of jewelry. One could call it an organic jewelry piece — organic in the sense that a print is a growing process with a clear course. The wire round the face and the stainless steel circle form around the profile are indications of the very personal face or head. It is just an idea to take away the well-defined function of the face and to let people experience it in another way.’

Germany was as influential as Holland during this period. The centre for the German jewelry trade was still in Pforzheim, with designers such as Hermann Junger, Reinhold Reiling and Friedrich Becker. In Germany, as in France, the apprenticeship system has remained strong and these three are all respected teachers in the craft. During the 1960s artist-jewelers such as these were encouraging a move towards abstract and conceptual art, seeing their role as being to remain free from the compulsions of industrial production.

In Britain, artist-jewelers, who had been almost non-existent but for Gerda Flockinger in the 1950s, became very influential during the sixties and have remained so since. British artist-jewelers of the 1960s specialized in informal, contemporary pieces, as epitomized in the work of Andrew Grima. He showed his work at the 1961 exhibition of modern jewelry at the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, alongside other jewelers such as Gillian Packard, John Donald and Louis Osman.

In the mid-sixties, a small group of British jewelers, Wendy Ramshaw, David Watkins and Caroline Broadhead, took a new interest in abstraction. In a brief return to the Bauhaus principles of design they gave close consideration to the relationship between form and function. Watkins’ work was inevitably influenced by his training as a sculptor. His jewelry pieces are architectonic in form, and stand independently as works of art, rather than being extensions of the person who wears them.

In America, Jean Schlumberger was designing for Tiffany in New York. Following Schiaparelli’s work in the thirties, and the ‘fantasy’ jewelry of the forties and fifties, he experimented with adventurous artistic ideas to break the traditional mould.

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Artist Jewelers in Europe and America