§ § David Watkins, a rare aluminium bracelet, 'Gyro-bangle',...

Estimate

£1,000 - £1,500

§ § David Watkins, a rare aluminium bracelet, 'Gyro-bangle', circa 1980, composed of three freely rotating concentric bands of aluminium tubing, inner circumference approximately 20cm, signed D. Watkins, edition number 14/250

Provenance: a British private collection, acquired circa 1980

David Watkins started his career as a jazz pianist and sculptor, making his first forays into jewellery design in the early 1970s alongside his lifelong partner, fellow acclaimed jewellery designer Wendy Ramshaw (1939-2018). One of the first to use computers in the design process, his jewels are informed by music and movement, with a committedly modernist aesthetic incorporating a wide range of materials including gold, paper and acrylic. Aluminium was a material he arrived at in the latter half of the 1970s following an exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum entitled 'Jewellery in Europe'. Appreciating its intrinsic lightness and its employment in industrial designs, the 'Gyro-Bangle', with its smoothly rotating rings, was his first multiple in this unorthodox metal and has since remained in continuous limited production as one of his most widely recognised designs, with examples in the V&A, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He later designed medals for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Cf.: Victoria & Albert Museum, accession no. M.44-1981, and Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession no. 2007.384.57, for two other 'Gyro-Bangles' in this series