Wendy Ramshaw The Inventor 4 February - 2 March 2013
Wendy Ramshaw The Inventor 4 February - 2 March 2013
Born in 1939, Wendy Ramshaw is an international champion of modern jewellery. Her signature Ringsets are represented in over 70 public collections worldwide and Prospero’s Table now sits on public display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in Texas. Ramshaw’s work also encompasses designs for textiles, screens, gateways and sculpture. The Scottish Gallery has exhibited some of her most ambitious ideas through exhibitions such as Picasso’s Ladies (1989), Room of Dreams (2002), Prospero’s Table (2004) and A Journey Through Glass (2007). Room of Dreams was designed and created as a theatrical stage set for the jewellery and has been revived as a major touring exhibition which began at Somerset House in 2012 and is now at Dovecot, Edinburgh and runs from 1 February – 30 March 2013. www.dovecotstudios.com The Inventor pays tribute to Wendy Ramshaw, the return of the Room of Dreams to Edinburgh and our long standing relationship with her. There will be examples from her major exhibitions including new work, archive material, photographs and sketch books.
Front cover: China Sea Earrings, 1998, 18ct gold on brass stand. Photo by William Van Esland Left: Set of Rings for Portrait of Dora Maar. 1990. 14 part ringset, 18ct gold, garnets, citrines, enamel. Photo by Bob Cramp
Set of five silver and 18ct gold rings with moonstone, agate and aquamarine on a frosted perspex stand, 2012. Photo by William Van Esland
11 part ringset. Silver, 18ct white gold, 18ct yellow gold, pale sapphires. Mounted on a transparent perspex stand. Photo by William Van Esland
Ringset for Woman Leaning on her Elbow, 1990-91, nine 18ct gold geometric rings with one moonstone. Photo by William Van Esland
Set of seven rings, 18ct yellow gold with diamonds, three target shapes mounted on a white delrin stand, 2010. Photo by William Van Esland
10 part ringset. 18ct yellow gold, amethyst, iolite, sapphire, garnet. Mounted on a brass stand inlaid with mauve. Photo by William Van Esland
Large Garnet ring, 18ct gold on brass stand inlaid with red. Photo by William Van Esland
10 part ringset, 18ct gold with smokey quartz, silver and gold, black enamel with gold dust, on a white delrin stand with pale brown inlay. Photo by William Van Esland
Sea Glass Ringset 6 x 18ct yellow gold rings with frosted whites and sea green glass, 1 x silver ring with pale cream enamel on a turned delrin stand with green inlay. Photo by William Van Esland
Woman Ironing Chain of Stones, silver, gilt and cubic zirconium, 1989. Photo by Shannon Tofts
Empress, 9 part 18ct white gold ringset with amethysts on a delrin stand. Photo by William Van Esland
Necklace: String of enamel beads, black line, 18ct yellow gold, black enamel Necklace: red line, 18ct yellow gold, red enamel Photo by William Van Esland
Six part Ringset, 2009 6 x 18ct yellow gold rings with Amethyst, pink tourmaline, green tourmaline, a dyed agate, blue topaz, fire opal on a turned delrin stand. Photo by William Van Esland
Seven part Ringset, 2009 7 x 18ct gold rings with pink tourmaline, blue topaz, amethyst, citrine tear, green cornelian, ruby, one plain band, on a turned delrin stand. Photo by William Van Esland
Left: Air, 2007, glass and 18ct gold thread, ball necklace, 6 cm diameter. Above: Lucciole, 2007, 18ct gold chain, pendant necklace, glass sphere with gold thread, 7 cm diameter. Photography by Graham Pym
Room of Dreams The Scottish Gallery 8 August - 3 September 2002 In 2002 Wendy Ramshaw achieved one of her most ambitious projects to date, by installing the Room of Dreams at The Scottish Gallery. This extraordinary project included flooring, a wall, furniture, sculpture and over 40 new pieces of jewellery all designed by Ramshaw for a specific area of the Gallery and united by an underlying theme of dreams. Although widely known as one of the most significant post-war jewellery designers in the UK, typified by projects such as Picasso’s Ladies shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in 1999, Room of Dreams gave the viewer an expectional and different insight into Ramshaw’s ability to articulate her ideas in very different ways and on differing scales.
Above & bottom right: Room of Dreams at The Scottish Gallery, 2002 Photography Shannon Tofts. Courtesy of Ruthin Craft Centre
The Red Queen This ring set was made for the Red Queen from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, to reflect her unpredictable temperament and imposing presence. Sold by The Scottish Gallery to a private collection
The Red Queen, Set of 22 rings. 18ct yellow gold with garnets on a red anodised aluminium stand, 19.5 x 4.8cm, 2001/02. Photo George Gammer
Rooms of Dreams Exhibition Tour Schedule Somerset House London March – June 2012 Ruthin Craft Centre Ruthin August – September 2012 Harley Gallery Welbeck November – December 2012 Dovecot Studios Edinburgh February – March 2013 MiMA Middlesburgh November 2013 – February 2014
White Rings for a Nude Lying in a White Bed Set of 12 rings, 1996-97, 18ct white gold with marble. Photo by Bob Cramp
Wendy Ramshaw Selected Publications Picasso’s Ladies, 1999 160 pages. Hardback publication in full colour presenting a collection of works by Wendy Ramshaw inspired by Picasso’s paintings of his wives, mistresses and friends. Arnoldsche Art Publishers ISBN 9783925369803 The Paper Jewelery Collection, 2000 40 pages. A cut out and self-assembly collection of over 20 wearables in paper. Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins; Thames & Hudson, London ISBN 0-500-51019-9 The Big Works, 2004 163 pages. Paper back in full colour illustrating site specific large scale installations. ISBN 84-607-9944-1 A Life’s Partnership, 2009 280 pages. Hardback publication in full colour. A survey of the life and work of David Watkins and Wendy Ramshaw. Available to purchase from The Scottish Gallery £25.00 Rooms of Dreams, 2012 208 pages. This hardback, casebound publication provides a unique insight into the fifty year career of this leading British designer. Indepth interviews, expert essays and sumptuous photography in this publication beautifully accompany the exhibition ‘Wendy Ramshaw: Rooms of Dreams’, a Harley Gallery touring exhibition in partnership with Ruthin Craft Centre. Available to purchase from The Scottish Gallery £25.00
Public Collections Born in 1939, Wendy Ramshaw is an international champion of modern jewellery. Her signature Ringsets are represented in over 70 public collections worldwide. Ramshaw’s work also encompasses designs for textiles, screens, gateways and sculpture. Work In Selected Public Collections Abbot Hall Gallery, Kendal (Uk) Art Gallery Of South Australia, Adelaide (Australia) Art Gallery Of Western Australia, Perth (Australia) Australian National Gallery, Canberra (Australia) Birmingham City Art Gallery, Birmingham (Uk) Broadfield House Glass Museum, Stourbridge (Uk) Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institute, New York (Usa) The Corning Museum Of Glass (Usa) The Crafts Council, London (Uk) Helen Williams Drutt Collection Of Modern Jewellery (Usa) Kundstindustrimuseet, Oslo (Norway) Liverpool Museum & Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (Uk) Musëe Des Arts Décoratifs, Paris (France) Museum Of Modern Art, Kyoto (Japan) Museum Fur Kunst Und Gewerbe, Hamburg (Germany) National Gallery Of Victoria (Australia) National Museum Of Wales, Cardiff (Uk) Die Neue Sammlung, Munich (Germany) Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseet, Trondheim (Norway) Philadelphia Museum Of Art, Philadelphia (Usa) Powerhouse, Sydney, New South Wales (Australia) Princessehof Museum (Holland) Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh (Uk) Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim (Germany) Science Museum, London (Uk) Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (Holland) Victoria & Albert Museum, London (Uk) Worshipful Company Of Goldsmiths, London (Uk) Universe 1797, 2007, blown glass,45 cm h. Purchased by the National Museums of Scotland from A Journey Through Glass at The Scottish Gallery, 2007
Prospero’s Table Inspired by reading Shakespear’s The Tempest, Prospero’s Table builds on the magic, mystery and Prospero’s Table is in the permanent collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas
Prospero’s Table, 2004. Photo by Shannon Tofts
brilliance of Room of Dreams, creating a charmed setting for some exceptional jewels.
Prospero’s Table, 2004. Photo by Shannon Tofts
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EVENTS & REVIEWS Model for ‘The Room of Dreams’, 2011, 64 x 64 x 40 cm
WENDY RAMSHAW: ROOMS OF DREAMS Tour itinerary: Somerset House, London, 5 – March – 24 June, 2012; Ruthin Craft Centre, Ruthin, 00 August – 0 October, 2012; Harley Gallery, Welbeck, 0 November – 00 December, 2012; Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, 00 February – 00 March, 2013
I
N August, 2002 the Scottish
Gallery in Edinburgh unveiled a new work by Wendy Ramshaw entitled Room of Dreams. It was an extraordinary example of the jewel as total artwork – a red and white room filled with furniture, hung with semi precious jewellery, alongside found objects, and contained within the abstract geometry of a Corian wall and patterned floor. As recently stated, it set out to ‘seduce the senses and ensnare the imagination’ 1 and in 2012 this effect is still evident as new Rooms of Dreams are unveiled in London, set in the grand, neoclassical surroundings of Somerset House and supported through Ruthin Craft Centre and the Harley Gallery. This 2012 installation, and its comprehensive catalogue, reminds us of the unique position which Wendy Ramshaw occupies in the ever shifting landscape of contemporary art and design. Trained initially as a textile designer and illustrator, she has long occupied centre stage in the field of contemporary jewellery, and in the early
‘Millennium Medal’ (detail), 1999, 18 ct yellow gold, nanocrystalline diamond-coated steel and zerodur, diam. 6 cm HM Queen Elizabeth II and The British Museum
1970s created one of the few original re-interpretations of the ring form, with groups of gold and silver rings, arranged on tiny, turned towers of steel. Her highly prolific 40-year career has produced a wealth of further jewels, whose poetic abstract geometry of spirals, cones and squares has been fabricated in materials as various as gold, clay, paper, Corian, fabric and semi-precious stones. However, all have the rare gift of both acknowledging a machine age – the 1972 White Queen ringset shown in “Jewellery in Europe” was analysed by an IBM computer to reveal its infinite possibilities of combination – whilst retaining subtle, emotional warmth. The jewellery is publicly acknowledged through over 70 international museum collections and privately enjoyed by the many individuals who own it all over the world. But Ramshaw does not sit easily within the contained, often inward looking, world of the independent studio jeweller, with its specialist publications, collectors and critical writers. Her reach is wider and more public, and this is seen most clearly in a growing series of commissions for site-specific architectural metalwork. From an early commission for a gate for St. Johns College Oxford to the more recent dramatic gates for Hyde Park in London, reveal what has always underpinned her work, that she is first and foremost a designer, whose imagination is responsive to the people, and technologies, of a fast paced world. She has enormous curiosity about human lives and knowledge, and sees vast possibilities in the man made – be they the precision tools imagined and engineered for navigation and shipbuilding by a seafaring nation, or the rich seams of art and artefacts collected in museums. A 2006 residency at the Science Museum in Oxford laid the foundations for another extraordinary installation in Edinburgh in 2007 A Journey through Glass which, with its fantastical blue ‘Model for Portlet Bay Gate, Jersey’, 2010, painted steel
Craft Arts International No.85, 2012
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Rooms of Dreams. Photo courtesy of Ruthin Craft Centre,2 012