In the early post-war years jewellery began to be accepted as an art form or ‘wearable art’, expressing the character of the wearer as much as that of the designer. In liberating themselves from the conventions of traditional jewellery, designers looked back to the modernist principles of the Bauhaus and to earlier avant-garde art movements such as Surrealism, Cubism and Constructivism. This allowed them to create unique designs, often with a sculptural quality. Jewels of this period are often abstract in design and asymmetrical.

E. R. Nele (Renée) was born in 1932 and studied in Berlin, Paris and at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London where she was a friend and contemporary of Gerda Flöckinger. She participated in the International Exhibition of Modern Jewellery, curated by Graham Hughes at the Goldsmiths Company in 1961. She then moved to the Berliner Akademie and subsequently to the Paris workshop of Lacourière. She is a sculptor and graphic designer, but also made jewellery. Her best known work is 'Die Rampe', a sculpture commemorating the Holocaust.