Q&A with Sarah Rothwell
Collecting modernist jewellery at National Museums Scotland
Sarah Rothwell, the assistant curator of modern and contemporary design at National Museums Scotland (NMS), was one of five curators who received a grant through the first round of the Art Fund’s New Collecting Awards.
The curatorial acquisition scheme aims to help curators develop their acquisition skills, build new collections or deepen existing ones and promote curatorial expertise.
Rothwell was awarded £50,000 to build a collection of northern European modernist jewellery.
The Art Fund this week launched the second round of the New Collecting Awards. The deadline for expressions of interest is 4 September.
What is the aim of your project?
The aim of the project is to create a collection of historical significance in the area of modernist jewellery that was designed and manufactured in northern Europe between 1945 and 1978.
Particular emphasis will be placed on work exploring the connections (and divergences) between the work being produced here in the British Isles and Scandinavia.
I intend to focus my research on pieces that are regarded as examples of high design, to complement a collection of more commercial modernist jewellery created by the Danish manufacturer Georg Jensen, which was recently donated to NMS.
We will also create a modernist jewellery research resource that will be of benefit to curators, scholars and the public at NMS.
Why is this area of collecting of interest to you and NMS?
NMS holds one of three nationally significant jewellery collections, alongside the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. Although our collections of jewellery are strong in arts and crafts and contemporary jewellery, there is a real lack of modernist pieces in the collections.
Modernist jewellery is also an area that has been under-represented in 20th-century research and collecting practise in the UK. Unlike other studio movements of postwar Britain, such as glass and ceramics, it has often been overlooked or discounted by many institutions and scholars.
This project will allow NMS to become a platform from which further collecting and academic research can progress, facilitating the expansion of knowledge and profile of northern European designer jewellers, as well as the collections held here in the UK and Europe.
What have you discovered from your research so far?
Graham Hughes’s seminal Exhibition of Modern Jewellery, held at Goldsmiths' Hall in London in 1961, showcased all that was new and exciting in jewellery design from the turn of the century to the modern day. He wanted the exhibition to be seen as a platform to stimulate the postwar British jewellery industry and to encourage institutions to start collecting contemporary designers.
But despite Hughes’s efforts, modernist jewellery was rarely collected in the UK; the focus of modernist jewellery collecting by museums has been in the US. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and Brooklyn Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts Boston, all hold large and important collections.
Collecting in the US has mostly concentrated on American designers such as Art Smith and Alexander Calder, with an exhibition of Smith’s work organised by the Brooklyn Museum currently touring the country.
What acquisitions will you be making as a result of your research?
I plan to focus on sourcing and obtaining significant examples of modernist jewellery. To allow me to do this I intend to explore other collections of this material in the UK, while consulting with curators, collectors as well as other experts in the field to enable me to create and develop a unique collection at NMS.
There is a breadth of designers I am interested in, such as Barbara Cartlidge, Stuart Devlin, Louis Osman, Sah Oved, Gillian Packard, Emanuel Raft, Charles de Temple, and Hubert Taylor-Rose, who were all working in Britain during this period.
In Scandinavia and Finland, I am interested in Henning Koppel, Anni and Bent Knudsen, Sigurd Persson, Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe, Pentti Sarpaneva, Björn Weckström, Tapio Wirkkala and Grete Prytz Kittelsen.
Not all designers were exclusively designing jewellery during this period; many worked across different disciplines and took inspiration from various aspects of modernist aesthetics. For example, British designer Andrew Grima drew on brutalism while Gillian Packard drew on constructivism.
Due to the ongoing increase in the market value of modernist jewellery, my aim is to collect pieces of historical significance without restricting myself to a specific number.
The curatorial acquisition scheme aims to help curators develop their acquisition skills, build new collections or deepen existing ones and promote curatorial expertise.
Rothwell was awarded £50,000 to build a collection of northern European modernist jewellery.
The Art Fund this week launched the second round of the New Collecting Awards. The deadline for expressions of interest is 4 September.
What is the aim of your project?
The aim of the project is to create a collection of historical significance in the area of modernist jewellery that was designed and manufactured in northern Europe between 1945 and 1978.
Particular emphasis will be placed on work exploring the connections (and divergences) between the work being produced here in the British Isles and Scandinavia.
I intend to focus my research on pieces that are regarded as examples of high design, to complement a collection of more commercial modernist jewellery created by the Danish manufacturer Georg Jensen, which was recently donated to NMS.
We will also create a modernist jewellery research resource that will be of benefit to curators, scholars and the public at NMS.
Why is this area of collecting of interest to you and NMS?
NMS holds one of three nationally significant jewellery collections, alongside the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art. Although our collections of jewellery are strong in arts and crafts and contemporary jewellery, there is a real lack of modernist pieces in the collections.
Modernist jewellery is also an area that has been under-represented in 20th-century research and collecting practise in the UK. Unlike other studio movements of postwar Britain, such as glass and ceramics, it has often been overlooked or discounted by many institutions and scholars.
This project will allow NMS to become a platform from which further collecting and academic research can progress, facilitating the expansion of knowledge and profile of northern European designer jewellers, as well as the collections held here in the UK and Europe.
What have you discovered from your research so far?
Graham Hughes’s seminal Exhibition of Modern Jewellery, held at Goldsmiths' Hall in London in 1961, showcased all that was new and exciting in jewellery design from the turn of the century to the modern day. He wanted the exhibition to be seen as a platform to stimulate the postwar British jewellery industry and to encourage institutions to start collecting contemporary designers.
But despite Hughes’s efforts, modernist jewellery was rarely collected in the UK; the focus of modernist jewellery collecting by museums has been in the US. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and Brooklyn Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts Boston, all hold large and important collections.
Collecting in the US has mostly concentrated on American designers such as Art Smith and Alexander Calder, with an exhibition of Smith’s work organised by the Brooklyn Museum currently touring the country.
What acquisitions will you be making as a result of your research?
I plan to focus on sourcing and obtaining significant examples of modernist jewellery. To allow me to do this I intend to explore other collections of this material in the UK, while consulting with curators, collectors as well as other experts in the field to enable me to create and develop a unique collection at NMS.
There is a breadth of designers I am interested in, such as Barbara Cartlidge, Stuart Devlin, Louis Osman, Sah Oved, Gillian Packard, Emanuel Raft, Charles de Temple, and Hubert Taylor-Rose, who were all working in Britain during this period.
In Scandinavia and Finland, I am interested in Henning Koppel, Anni and Bent Knudsen, Sigurd Persson, Vivianna Torun Bülow-Hübe, Pentti Sarpaneva, Björn Weckström, Tapio Wirkkala and Grete Prytz Kittelsen.
Not all designers were exclusively designing jewellery during this period; many worked across different disciplines and took inspiration from various aspects of modernist aesthetics. For example, British designer Andrew Grima drew on brutalism while Gillian Packard drew on constructivism.
Due to the ongoing increase in the market value of modernist jewellery, my aim is to collect pieces of historical significance without restricting myself to a specific number.