The artist jewellers Wendy Ramshaw and David Watkins met at Reading University in 1961 when they “fell quickly and completely in love” and married the following year. In 2012 they will mark 50 years of what Graham Hughes celebrates as “togetherness”. For 35 years they shared a studio, he tells us in his book David Watkins Wendy Ramshaw: A Life’s Partnership. They collaborated on paper jewellery in the 1960s, exhibited together, travelled together and shared the same experiences. They raised a son and daughter together while pursuing independent careers, each winning wide acclaim, and thrilling international admirers with their surprising and inventively daring design. Their ingenuity as intimate adorners of the body takes on another dimension in large-scale commissions for gates and other public designs. The technical and visual influences common to each, and the creative cross-overs, as well as their distinctive identities as designers—Watkins, austere and minimal, Ramshaw at home in elaborated assembly—are beautifully presented in this profusely illustrated book.It is hard to know whether to categorise the book as biography or as an appreciation of the contribution Watkins and Ramshaw have made to the revival of jewellery design in the past half-century. Hughes claims it as the first account of “their life and work as a couple”. In support the artists have released informal family photos. At the same time, the dust jacket describes Hughes’s book as “a timely reminder” of these artists’ role “in shaping the practice and understanding of contemporary jewellery and metalwork in the UK and internationally”. These two intentions never fuse. In recognition of their equality, the book has two biographical beginnings, “David” and “Wendy”, laid out in parallel columns of text, one of which, in grey type, is particularly trying on the eyes. The experience is confusing and it is best to read each column as a chronologically separate if overlapping tale.
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