Foreword

In 1954, the writer and mystic Aldous Huxley wrote a short book called The Doors of Perception, in which he described the numinous quality of gems and jewellery:

“Of all the vision-inducing arts that which depends most completely on its raw materials is, of course, the art of the goldsmith and jeweller.… And when to this natural magic of glinting metal and self-luminous stone is added the other magic of noble forms and colours artfully blended, we find ourselves in the presence of a genuine talisman.”

In my view, nobody said a truer word and never was it more relevant than to the pages that follow in this remarkable book. However, Huxley’s perception of jewellery as a high art form was all but lost in the wake of two world wars. This was because society as it once was had been changed and changed forever. The dazzling formal receptions that were commonplace at the turn of the century were virtually over and taxation had diminished the vast fortunes of both the nobility and the merchant classes. Furthermore, the days of inexpensive skills had gone and patrons were less willing to spend money on craftsmanship and design; instead, those who wanted contemporary jewellery were more inclined to buy a show of precious stones for investment rather than for fashion; and least of all, for art.

It is, as they say, always darkest before dawn and in the early 1960s a small band of artist craftsmen were determined to revive and maintain the high standards of the past. Rather like Huxley, they felt that the wonders of nature were to be found in conventional precious stones yet they also used an intriguing array of natural materials from both land and sea. Andrew Grima was just as happy to mount a conus shell or a branch of coral as he was a precious topaz; but it was always in his very own modern autographic idiom.

Occasionally it seemed that he had waved an alchemist’s wand over very modest materials like ginkgo leaves, lichen and even fragile pencil shavings and transmuted them into gold. However, Andrew Grima never lost sight of the fact that these experiments were intended as jewellery and their delicate organic forms were usually accentuated with a diamond dewdrop or a lustrous pearl. My particular favourite is a delicious jumble of cinnamon twigs cast in rich yellow gold that, with his perfect colour pitch, Grima centred with a zesty orange fire opal (see the frontispiece).

Pivotal to this new era of creativity and inspiration was the International Exhibition of Modern Jewellery at Goldsmiths’ Hall in 1961. Andrew Grima’s work was much admired and soon it was clear to everyone that he was at the vanguard of contemporary taste and inspiration.

— Geoffrey C Munn, OBE, MVO