Else and Paul Hughes were part of the Studio Silver
Movement in Norway in the early sixties. Paul C. Hughes was born 1934
in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, England, Else Berntsen Hughes was born 1938 in
Oslo, and they met in the Central School of Arts and Crafts, London. In
1959 they estasblished their workshop 'Studio Else & Paul' in Hadeland,
near Oslo. In 1962 the workshop moved to Oslo and in 1967 to Asker, also
in the Oslo vincinity.
With the Studio Silver Movement, the trend in jewelry making became
more ascetic, and the language of morphologi of jewelry in a way more
simplistic. The value of a piece was not equivalent to the value of the
materials used, more was it the artistic expression, as had been the case
for a long time in the world of paintings et cetera, that gave of it's
value to the jewelry. Also the small scale studios didn't have the econimical
ability to work in predominantly high cost materials. Bronze and local
semi-prescious stones took over after gold and diamonds. In the same period
there was also a trend towards tecniques that allowed serial production
of jewellery to reduce production costs, thus making good art jewelry
avaliable to a larger audience.
While artists like Tone Vigeland worked in the tradition of Modern Scandinavian
silversmithery, Else & Paul got their inspiration from the jewelry of
other cultures. They created their own form of artistic expression. The
results were lines of lucious and diversified jewelry that soon enjoyed
great popularity. The driving force of their creativity was the bold richness
of their imagination, unconventionally inspired by handicraft and abstract
art from socalled primitive cultures, and their creations perform a fine
balance between free sculpture and worn jewelry. In their own words: 'The
uniqueness of a piece of jewelry ought to be in the shaping of it, every
object should be a composition with a character of it's own, also where
the amount of precious metal used is at a minimum'.
The Hughes couple worked almost entirely in a tecknique of casting called
'à cire perdue' or the 'lost-wax-method'. The piece of jewelry
is first modelled in wax. Around this model is cast a mould of plaster.
The mould is then heated so that the wax melts and comes out. Liquid silver
is poured into the mould while it is rotating. Finally the jewelry is
given a manual after-treatment.
Else & Paul Hughes together with the young Tone Vigeland where the most
noticed of the jewelry designers in the Norwegian exibition at the XII
Triennale in Milan 1960. For Else & Paul this was to be the international
break through. Their over 20 pieces of jewelry exhibited featured bracelets
and brooches in sterling silver and gold.
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Brooch,
gold, 1960s.
Cufflinks,
silver, 1960s.
Brooch/pendant,
patinated/oxidized silver, 1960s.
Ring,
bronze with Eilat stone, 1970s.
Brooch/pendant, gold, late 1970s,
limited and numbered edition.
Pendant,
bronze with Eilat stone, 1970s.
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