Origins & Legacy of Art Jewellery in South Africa
Timed Online Auction, 6 - 22 October 2025
Origins
About the SessionOrigins, explores the emergence of South African fine metal artistry through pioneering immigrant goldsmiths and jewellers such as Erich Frey, Peter Cullman, Margaret Richardson, Elsa Wongchowsky, Tessa Fleischer and Birger Haglund. Many were drawn to South Africa after the Second World War, seeking opportunities to establish workshops. Their training in European institutions, such as Pforzheim, equipped them with modernist principles and technical expertise. Their works embodied modernist aesthetics while adapting to local contexts. They experimented with form, texture, and materiality, linking jewellery to broader artistic movements.
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Margaret Richardson also know as Lilly Margaret Richardson, received her goldsmithing education in the 1930s in Germany and emigrated to South Africa after World War II.
Richardson established her own studio in Cape Town where she worked until relocating to Johannesburg in 1957. She favoured materials such as copper and sterling silver and had a deep appreciation for South African semi-precious stones which she personally sourced and incorporated into her pieces. Some of her pieces are signed LMR, as she was born Ulli/ Lilly Margarete Samuelson in Russia in 1908.
Her career in South Africa spanned from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, after which she relocated to the United Kingdom. Her bold forms, craftmanship and use of local materials left a lasting stamp on South African jewellery design.
She was a pioneer of the 'Safari jewellery' movement, a design style that celebrated bold, organic motifs drawing inspiration from South African landscapes and cultures.
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