Wendy Ramshaw THE INVENTOR 4 FEBRuARY

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
1
Rooms of Dreams. Photo courtesy of
Ruthin Craft Centre, 2012