Brooch

This piece is part of the Royal College of Art Visiting Artists Collection. Every year from 1987 to 2006, while David Watkins was Professor of Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery at the RCA, he invited four jewellers and silversmiths from outside Britain to give a week-long masterclass. The artists brought diverse skills, aesthetics and approaches. The first call on their time was to interact closely with the students. In addition, although concentrating on their teaching and working in an unfamiliar studio, each artist generously made an object for the RCA's collection. The Royal College of Art Visiting Artists Collection, now transferred to the V&A, is a major document of international contemporary jewellery, a tribute both to the artists and to the vibrancy of the RCA as a teaching institution.

Jewellers of the late 20th century found new ways of drawing out gold's natural beauty. By exploring surface treatments and textures they created an effect very different from the bright metallic glint of polished gold. They restored an elemental simplicity and grandeur to this most enduring of metals.

Georg Dobler studied goldsmithing in Pforzheim, but soon moved to Berlin. The urban architecture of the city was to make a lasting impression on his work. He was fascinated by geometry, structures, spaces, lines, and Constructivist art. Dobler’s wire structures form linear planes and volumes, expressing solids or voids. Recently he has moved from these geometric structures, as seen here, to organic forms taken from nature and represented in gemstones.