Françoise van den Bosch recieved attention from curators, galleries and collectors very early in her career. She graduated from the department of jewellery design at the Arnhem Academy of Art in 1969 and quickly began touring the world as a jewelry designer. Shortly after her graduation, her work toured with the exhibition ‘Objects to Wear by five Dutch Jewellery Designers’. The exhibition began at the Van Abbemuseum in Amsterdam, finishing in the United States in 1973. Her work was shown with other famous designers Emmy van Leersum, Gijs Bakker, Nicolaas van Beek and Bernhard Lamérus. The innovative nature of her work was revolutionary and at just age 24 she established herself as an influental international designer. She primarily worked with metal because of the sense of discovery and challenge that comes with handling such rigid materials. She explains her inspiration for working with metal in the Amsterdam Parool Magazine in 1975: “I’ve always worked with metals. Metals are extremely hard, they challenge you. Metal reflects something, it is resilient, it also works against you and you can hurt yourself. I find it fascinating to explore all these characteristics” The cirlce is essential to Bosch’s work and is seen throughout many of her designs. She describes the cirlce as the “basic form of life”. The simplicity and organic nature of her work evokes
Born February 29, 1944
feelings of freedom and timelessness. She did not like showing her work to anyone besides her close friends and family. Each piece was very personal and sentimental. Françoise was highly critical of herself and her work and became frustrated when the slightest details did not go as planned. This dedication to craft allowed her to produce well refined
pieces that have a pure aesthetic quality. Her work incorperates a sense of unity with each piece interlocking with another piece to create a cohesive piece of jewelry. She was one of the first international artists to create an autonomy among her work. The perfectionist quality to her artistic process gives her work a unique quality that bridges the gap between human and machine made jewelry.
Graduated from department of jewelry design at Arnhem Academy in 1969
Jewelry exhibite
ed in ‘Objects to Wear by five Dutch Jewellery Designers’ from 1969 to 1973
Dominique Pelletey photograph comission France, 1956
This smoothly curving two part form is the result of tremendous hard work. By anodizing the aluminium at the end the surface acquires a soft tone. Working with tubes, hammers, pliers and vices had a tough aspect. This appealed to Françoise. Jerven Ober wrote in his book about Françoise how she had found a round, corroded tube that she could use very well: “A large number of her famous objects has been hammered alternately concave and convex on that thing.” She was very excited to have been selected to participate in exhibitions of the Dutch Group of Sculptors.
Along with Marion Herbst, Onno Boekhoudt, Karel Niehorster and Berend Peter, Françoise van den Bosch was one of the founding memb
Along with Marion Herbst, Onno Boekhoudt, Karel Niehorster and Berend Peter, Françoise van den Bosch was one of the founding members in 1973 of the BOE group, the Union of Rebellious Silversmiths. BOE was against the then art acquisitions policy of the Dutch Government, from which only a limited number of jewellery designers benefited. The members were for more openness, more debate, more public information and improved exhibition and presentation opportunities. Their first and only exhibition “Revolt in Jewellery by Five Dutch Artists” was in April 1974 at the Electrum Gallery, London, at the invitation of crafts writer and curator Ralph Turner. The BOE group led in 1975 to the founding of VES, the Union of Silversmiths and Jewellery Designers, the first trade union for the profession. This black and white bracelet is an iconic piece. It is Françoise van den Bosch’s best known design, and at first glance a selfevident piece. The ingenious design, based on two separate circle shaped parts that simply slide into one another, is kept in position by the arm. In 1990, at the occasion of the 10-year anniversary of the Françoise van den Bosch Foundation, jewellery designer Jan Matthesius reproduced this bracelet one hundred times. The popular multiple quickly sold out.
bers in 1973 of the BOE group, the Union of Rebellious Silversmiths. BOE was against the then art s policy of the Dutch Government
The Franรงoise van den Bosch Foundation, named after Francoise van den Bosch was conceived in 1980 by prominent members of the
In July 1977 Franรงoise died unexpectedly aged thirty three, at her house in Amsterdam. At the time she was preparing for a retrospective at the Van Reekummuseum, Apeldoorn. In 1978 and 1979 her show travelled to nine art galleries in the Netherlands, starting with the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. The archive of Franรงoise van den Bosch is preserved at the RKD (Netherlands Institute for Art History) in The Hague.
e Dutch progressive jewellery community and members of her family. Its aim: to stimulate and promote contemporary jewellery.