Makers & Designers

Kitty Schneider is a South African artist-jeweller based in Smithfield, Free State. She received her early training at Stellenbosch University under Dieter Dill and Daniel Kruger, and later taught Jewellery Design at Pretoria Technikon and served as a guest lecturer at Stellenbosch University. Her early career focused on bringing quality South African design into the commercial jewellery industry, including a 1996 commission for Anglo American’s Kika Jewellery project, which sought to promote South African designer jewellery internationally.

A period studying under Ramon Puig Cuyàs in Barcelona {separately specialising in enameling} marked a significant shift in Kitty’s work. Spanish art culture inspired her to move from rigid, design-oriented work towards jewellery as an expressive art form and the development of a personal language. Growing up with German heritage in a changing South Africa, marked by the apartheid era and the "Border war," of the 1980s, Kitty felt a deep need to counter the darkness of spirit with intentional beauty, colour and playfulness.

Today, Kitty works from her creative seclusion in Smithfield, where she produces Fine Art Jewellery and bespoke commissions alongside upcycled jewellery and surrealist watercolour landscapes. Her work combines technical mastery with a celebration of beauty, colour, imagination and the unexpected.