Bishopsland show at V&A
Ocean Ridges I, Ndide Ekubia, sterling silver
A contemporary silver exhibition at the V&A until 19 September highlights the achievements of the Bishopsland Educational Trust
The Trust was set up by silver specialists Oliver and Penelope Makower as a one-year training course for graduates, with the aim of easing them gently through the transition from student to professional. Since then it’s attracted some of the UK’s best makers, many of whom started off as students and end up as tutors there. It also helps commission work from young silversmiths for loan to national museums through its sister organisation the P & O Makower Trust.
The current exhibition features silver makers and jewellers who have been involved with Bishopsland at some point during their professional careers – either as teachers or students – and it underlines just how successful the two Trusts have been. The exhibitor list reads as a roll-call of contemporary silversmiths and includes makers at the top of the tree such as Jerwood Prize winner Jacqueline Mina, Malcolm Appleby and Rod Kelly. It’s also a visual potted history of UK silver-making over the last thirty years (it spans the period 1979-2009) with the earliest exhibit being a vase by Jane Short made in 1979 and the latest a piece specially made by Ane Christiansen for the show.
www.bishopsland.org.uk
