ANDREW GRIMA (1921-2007)

Andrew Grima, a British jewelry designer, was born in Rome in 1921 and came to London with his family at the age of five. He served in World War II and studied mechanical engineering at Nottingham University. Grima joined his then-father-in-law’s jewelry business, HJ Company, in 1946. He started his own business in 1951 and eventually employed several dozen jewelers. He never trained as a jeweler.

In 1966, Grima was the first and only jewelry designer to win the Duke of Edinburgh Prize for Elegant Design; in the same year, he was awarded the Queen’s Award for Export. He was awarded the Royal Warrant in 1970. Grima won twelve DeBeers International Diamond awards and became a Freeman and then Liveryman of the Goldsmiths’ Company.

Grima achieved fame in his lifetime as a leader of the avant-garde modernist movement in jewelry. He perfected the art of casting directly from nature and everyday objects. He was also interested in letting the natural beauty of the stone remain the primary focus of his designs, sometimes avoiding the use of any metal and using diamonds sparingly. Other times, he added a textured gold setting to his pieces that became part of his trademark style. His jewelry can be found in numerous important private collections, including that of Queen Elizabeth II as well as members of her family, and in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, among others.

Read more about Andrew Grima and his contemporaries in our catalog London Originals, available for sale here.