WENDY RAMSHAW (1939- 2018)

Wendy Ramshaw, a sculptor and jeweler, was born in Sunderland, England, in 1939. She first studied illustration and textile design at Newcastle’s College of Art and Industrial Design from 1956 to 1960 and later switched to industrial design while attending Reading University in 1960.

Ramshaw always saw jewelry as a creative outlet for her ideas. Her earliest pieces in paper were sold with much fanfare by the fashion designer Mary Quant in her hip London boutique, Bazaar, in the 1960s. It was this work that pushed her to go back to school and study at the Central School of Art and Design in London. Interested in making more one-of-a-kind pieces, a commission for a ring featuring one large moonstone led her to design her groundbreaking clustered, stacking rings on turned pillars. Each one is an original for its use of gemstones and for announcing the idea that jewelry can be displayed and appreciated as art when not worn on the body. The ring sets propelled her career and allowed her to grow creatively. Throughout her artistic life, Ramshaw designed on both small and large scales, turning to public art commissions later on.

In 1993, Ramshaw was one of only two women to be admitted as a Freemason of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. In 2003, she was awarded an OBE for her services to the arts and the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

In addition to her numerous titles, Ramshaw’s work has been featured globally in solo exhibitions. Her work is in the public collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and the Museum of Arts and Design, New York, among numerous others.

Read more about Wendy Ramshaw and her contemporaries in our catalog London Originals, available for sale here