Wendy Ramshaw

Wendy Ramshaw was born in Sunderland in 1939. She studied illustration and fabric design at Newcastle upon Tyne College of Art and Industrial Design (1956-69), and Reading University (1960-61) and undertook post-graduate studies at the Central School of Art and Design, London (1969).

As Britain's foremost designer of jewellery, Wendy Ramshaw has been acknowledged at the highest levels for her achievement. She was made Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1972. A year later she was named a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, one of the first two women to be admitted to the guild's ranks, and in 1986 she was made a Lady Liveryman. In acknowledgement of her services to the arts, Wendy Ramshaw was awarded the OBE in 1993.

Her work has been shown in over two hundred exhibitions worldwide. It is represented in public collections - museums and art galleries - ranging from the United States, to Australia and throughout Europe and Scandinavia, as well as in Britain. Her signature works are sets of rings, abstract pieces in precious metals and gems. Often displayed on perspex ring-stands which are exquisitely sculptural and when enlarged become works of great presence and beauty.

Wendy Ramshaw is quoted as saying, 'I am supposed to make beautiful things.' Her designs are based in geometry: the circle and square, ring and band. She elaborates on these time and again to achieve compositions that are extremely complex. She has said that her work is about complication and how far you can push an idea. Ramshaw constantly researches and experiments, finding new materials and extending her sculptural vocabulary. In working more recently on a large scale, her imagery complements architecture and interiors, as her jewellery dresses the human body.