Article
12 October 2023
A free exhibition of highlights from The Pearson Silver Collection devoted to post-World War II British designer silver will be held at Noonans Mayfair (16 Bolton Street, London W1J 8BQ) between Monday, October 30 to Friday, November 10, 2023.
Featuring works including fine boxes and magnificent candelabra by Stuart Devlin (1931-2018) and Gerald Benney (1930 – 2008), the Exhibition will be open daily between 10.30am – 4pm (Closed on Sunday 5 November) and the catalogue is sponsored by The Goldsmiths’ Company. Many of the pieces are being shown for the first time.
Frances Noble, Associate Director and Head of Jewellery at Noonans explains: “We are delighted to be hosting an exhibition of highlights from the Pearson Silver Collection, the largest collection of its kind in private hands and is regarded as being of national importance.”
She continued: “In the late 1950s, there was a Renaissance in British silverware to break away from the Scandinavian influence on British design led by a small group of silversmiths including Benney and Devlin, working towards creating an international image of British silver in modern terms.”
This exhibition features a run of 66 boxes created by Benney including the first that was made in 1952, to one of his last in 2000. As John Andrew, owner of the Pearson Silver Collection noted: “This collection took 30 years to form, the most difficult to secure being one of the six boxes commissioned by Queen Elizabeth II to present to dignitaries. We believe this run of boxes is unrivalled internationally and this is the first time the complete run has been displayed.”
He continued: “There are three surviving centrepieces. We are showing the second centrepiece Devlin made, the only surviving enamel example, and a later one. The exhibition also includes the first significant piece of silver Benney ever made – a goblet - at the Brighton College of Art.”
“While Devlin’s 1960s lighting is magical, he will be remembered for his creativity. We are displaying 17 of his boxes, including the incredible ‘cobweb box’ that he not only designed but also made at the bench, plus a broad cross-section of his work. When Godfrey Winn, the writer, actor, and newspaper columnist visited Devlin’s Clerkenwell workshop in 1968, he described what he saw as “a veritable Aladdin’s cave”, adding that the objects, “were the work of a magician”.”
Born at Hull in 1930, Adrian Gerald Sallis Benney started his artistic training at Brighton College of Art in 1946 where his father was Principal. Dunstan Pruden, who was a member of the semi-religious Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic at Ditchling on the South Downs, taught him silversmithing while he studied at Brighton. Pruden also gave the young Benney hands-on experience at the Guild. Following military service from 1948 to 1950, Benney proceeded to the Royal College of Art (RCA) where he studied silversmithing under Professor Robert Goodden.
In 1952 his four-piece tea service and tray won him the Prince of Wales Scholarship. The early 1960s was the turning point for Benney’s silver business. In 1961, while raising the bowl of a goblet, he accidentally took a hammer from the rack with a damaged head. After a few blows with the hammer what should have been a smooth surface had a series of patterns imposed on the bowl. While many silversmiths would have cursed such an error, Gerald found the result pleasing and experimented further. The rest is history: he ‘invented’ silver with a textured surface, or ‘Benney Bark Finish’ as it became known in the trade. While textured silver was regarded at first as a novelty, it certainly appealed to the public. It boosted sales and although others copied it mercilessly, it remained an integral part of Benney’s repertoire and indeed, it remains so to this day.
In addition to the discovery of texturing, 1961 was important for Gerald for another reason. Coventry Cathedral approached him for what at the time was regarded as the largest ecclesiastical commission of the century. The 1960s were booming years for Benney’s workshop. During the decade his work appeared at 32 major exhibitions throughout the world. In 1964 he moved his family home from a Mayfair townhouse to Beenham House, a 52-room mansion near Reading. During 1969 he had his first one-man show. In 1973 a major retrospective of his work was staged at Goldsmiths’ Hall. The exhibition included the Benney silver and enamel box lent by the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip that had been commissioned by members of the royal family for the occasion of the couple’s Silver Wedding Anniversary the previous year. In 1980 the Prince of Wales granted Gerald a Royal Warrant, making his total four - the first British craftsman to hold so many.
When Benney’s son Simon was asked what his father would best be remembered for, he replied, “his boxes and centrepieces”
Stuart Devlin was born in Australia, in Geelong, Victoria, and died in 2018 aged 86. He studied goldsmithing and silversmithing at Royal Melbourne Technical College and then silversmithing and sculpture at Columbia University, New York (1960-62). However, it was winning the competition to design Australia’s first decimal coinage, which was introduced in 1966, that changed his life, Subsequently, he designed the medals for Australia’s new honours system in 1975 and many of their defence force and civilian medals, as well as coins for more than 30 other countries. For the Australian coins, he supervised the cutting of the dies at the Royal Mint in London and in 1965, using his prize money, he bought a small house in Clerkenwell with a basement workshop where he started a goldsmithing and silversmithing business. This was the first of seven workshops where he employed and trained many highly skilled craftsmen. He was appointed CMG in 1980, granted a Royal Warrant in 1982 and in 1996-97 served as Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company. He was also integral to the foundation of the Goldsmiths’ Centre, which opened in 2012, aimed at addressing shortcomings in the creative education and training of goldsmiths. After closing his workshop, he retired to Littlehampton in West Sussex.
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