Contemporary Silver

Giving a glittering start to our 2010 - 2011 lecture season Rosemary Ransome Wallis led us through the world of fine silver from medieval times to the present day. In this world Rosemary is clearly the expert’s expert. Curator as well as a (Lady) Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in the City of London – which received its first Royal Charter in 1327 to ensure that “all those who were of the Goldsmith’s craft were to sit in their shops in the high street of Cheap. No silver plate – or vessels in gold or silver - to be sold in the City except in the said street or the King’s Exchange” – she is responsible for some 8,000 gold and silver objects in the Company’s magnificent collection. We were told how and why control was exercised over the craft and how the production of silver items evolved and developed over the centuries, seeing slides of some amazing pieces of antique silver and learning about the difference between designer craftsmen and artist craftsmen, hearing how the world of silver was influenced by many wider architectural and design movements, before concentrating on just a selection of modern designers and artists who have given Britain a leading position globally in the second half of the 20th century: among them were Malcolm Appleby who uses techniques such as engraving, mixing metals, texturing and hammering to combine surface quality with form so that the decorative process becomes complementary to the final form; Simon Benney, who gives an illusion of depth to his work by adding texture and uses colour by means of enamelling to highlight the detail; Toby Russell who develops his ideas three dimensionally using card models rather than drawing, and then folds silver sheet along scored lines to create the most amazing shapes and reflections. And it is by no means just a man’s field: among the many female designers is Lexy Dick who models figurative pieces in wax for casting, usually involving animals, real, heraldic or mythical,and whose bowl supported on seahorse tails produced for the Emperor Hirohito was among the delightful slides illustrating this fascinating talk.