July 2026, Part 1
Art Jewelry Forum is pleased to share all jewelry news. If you’re a member of AJF, you may add news and ideas to this bi-monthly report by submitting here. If you aren’t a member, but would like to become one, join AJF here.
Some of the news items below have no accompanying images. AJF regrets not having the staff capacity to request imagery and permissions from non-members of AJF. You may send us a high-res image (1 MB or larger) for a news listing that concerns you by emailing our managing editor at nathalie [at] artjewelryforum [dot] org. We will promptly add it to the corresponding newsbyte.
TRAVEL TO HOUSTON WITH AJF: SEPTEMBER 23–26, 2026
For our first visit back to Houston in almost 20 years, we’re arriving at an especially strong moment. We’ll visit the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to celebrate two important exhibitions: the first US solo presentations of Bernhard Schobinger and Dorothea Prühl, both key figures in avant-garde art jewelry. Each exhibition spans nearly 50 years of work. To complement the exhibitions, we’ll attend a day-long symposium featuring leading voices in the field, followed by a reception celebrating these two exhibitions—an opportunity to gather with fellow collectors, artists, and enthusiasts. Our program will also include visits to the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, along with artist studios, museum collections, and other stops that reflect the breadth of the city’s creative life. If you’re interested in attending, please email danielle@artjewelryforum.org.
FEEL LIKE SEEING A JEWELRY SHOW?
Find listings from around the world on our dedicated exhibition page.
EVENTS
We have a dedicated page for them. Go here to see the list.
NEWS FROM OUR MEMBERS
TED NOTEN MASTERCLASS NOW OPEN FOR REGISTRATION
This workshop is built around short, spontaneous assignments that generate flow. The process—the doing—is more important than the end result. Through playful interventions and focused tasks, participants will explore how meaning is constructed, deconstructed, and reinvented. The final assignment will emerge from the group dynamic and the context created together. The situation itself becomes the engine. Takes place at the 3rd Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial, September 19–23, 2026. Info.
SOFIA BJÖRKMAN MASTERCLASS NOW OPEN FOR REGISTRATION
This class explores how ideas of wildness shift in a time where human, natural, and artificial worlds increasingly overlap. In prehistoric times, jewelry was made from what we define as wild materials, bones, stones, shells carrying stories of place, belief, and survival. Later, materials such as metals and fabric were shaped by the human hand and became increasingly refined. Today, these boundaries blur: natural and synthetic materials merge, digital processes inform making, and the wild may exist as much in data and imagination as in nature. Through discussion and making, participants will explore how wild and artificial materials can be transformed into something unexpected and unpredictable. Takes place at the 3rd Lisbon Contemporary Jewellery Biennial, September 19–23, 2026. More.
HEIDI LOWE GALLERY CELEBRATES ITS 20TH ANNIVERSARY AUGUST 28, 2026
Cheer for Heidi that evening during a bash at the gallery, 5–9 pm—woot, woot, two decades! More.
HAROLD O’CONNOR TO GIVE TALK AT METALWERX AUGUST 20, 2026
The AJF member is one of a dozen speakers giving weekly presentations through mid-September. Thursdays, in Waltham, MA, US. Free, with light refreshments. Info.
CONSTELLATIONS OPENS AT CHRYSLER MUSEUM JULY 10, 2026
Features 350+ works of wearable art showcasing nearly a century of creativity from jewelry artists across the globe. Explores the myriad ways artists have reimagined jewelry, revealing an extraordinary range of materials, forms, and ideas. Featuring golden crowns formed to look like cardboard, enchanting necklaces made from plastic bags, and whimsical brooches resembling toast, Constellations captures the depth, breadth, and diversity of contemporary jewelry design. More.
NYCJW NAMES ALICE BIOLO ONE FOR THE FUTURE HONOREE
Biolo is an Italian artist based in Glasgow. Her practice moves between jewelry and sculpture. Body-related objects become sites for storytelling, transformation, and concealment. Working across wearable and stand-alone forms, she blends traditional craftsmanship with experimental, often kinetic approaches, creating pieces that reveal themselves only through interaction. Read an interview here.
GOLDSMITHS FAIR, SEPTEMBER 21–OCTOBER 4, 2026
AJF member James Dougall wrote in with a reminder about the most important designer/maker jewelry show in the UK. It has run for 40 years and is the pinnacle of selling exhibitions in the UK. Held at Goldsmiths Hall, in London. Info.
MARGIT HART AND FRITZ MAIERHOFER FEATURED IN WALD – SCHMUCK UND BUCH
The exhibition features one-of-a-kind pieces from the fields of author jewelry and artists’ books, many created specifically for this show. The works explore mindfulness toward the forest and the forest as a place of reflection and connection with nature. See it on July 25 or September 13, 2026, 4–8 pm, at Galerie am Platz, in Aggsbach Markt, Wachau Valley. Between those two dates, phone the gallery for an appointment: +43 664 4015300.
RESILIENCE: INITIATIVES IN ARTS AND CULTURE GOLD + DIAMOND CONFERENCE
For 16 years, IAC’s Gold + Diamond Conference has been informed by two primary concerns: how to define and achieve responsible practice on the one hand, and how to preserve and celebrate artisanry and artistic vision on the other. While their perspective on these concerns is ever-broadening, the goal remains the same: to initiate dialogue and inspire change without fear. July 13–15, 2026. Info. An AJF member works for IAC, and the work in the photo accompanying this blurb is by AJF member Ute Decker.
GOING UNDERGROUND: THE JEWELS OF BERNHARD SCHOBINGER
September 3, 2026–January 3, 2027, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will present the first US exhibition dedicated to the groundbreaking Swiss artist. Featuring more than five decades of experimental work, the exhibition explores Schobinger’s radical transformation of jewelry into a conceptual and subversive art form.
DISPATCH FROM THE COLONIES
Geraldine Fenn won the inaugural AJF Solo Exhibition Award. Her resulting show, at Galerie Noel Guyomarc’h through August 1, 2026, explores power dynamics linked to the European colonization of Africa. She drew inspiration from cabinets of curiosities, in reverse: rather than displaying the colonized, she transforms the colonizers into exotic objects. This idea unfolds in jewelry adorned with royal portraits and African trade beads, portraits of aristocrats displaced into a hostile African setting, playing cards depicting miniaturized colonists, hybrid objects blending European and African materials, and collaboration with Zimbabwean beading collective Marigold. Fenn aims for a nuanced reading of colonial history, beyond a simple perpetrator/victim dynamic, contributing in her own way to the reinterpretation of official narratives that still shape our understanding of colonialism. More.
BJC IMPLEMENTS PAYMENT PLANS
As part of its ongoing commitment to making contemporary craft as accessible as possible, the Baltimore Jewelry Center now offers payment plans on gallery and metal shop purchases! The goal is to create new paths toward building collections and supporting artists for individuals who are new to collecting artwork. Info here, or email info [at] baltimorejewelrycenter [dot] org.
NEWS FROM ALL AROUND
IN MEMORIAM: THOMAS GENTILLE
Gentille, and American Craft Council Fellow, died March 6, 2026, at the age of 89. “He was known for his work with non-precious materials, celebrating the nature of material and exhibiting careful attention to form and color,” wrote Beth Goodrich. Find her full article here.
FILIGREE PLAY, AT A-GALERII, THROUGH JULY 27, 2026
Henry Mardisalu’s hands, metal feels like a living material. His greatest passion is filigree, which he learned fom his grandmother, the renowned jeweler Aino Kapsta. Over the years, moving away from her more classic approach, Mardisalu has developed his own bold, modern artistic language. His pieces often take the form of geometric architectural compositions, where influences of Middle Eastern ornamentation and complex patterned structures can be observed. More.
RING MADE FROM EGGSHELLS FEATURED IN 90+10
A piece by the Argentine contemporary jewelry designer Luciana Andrea Sessa was recently spotlighted in an Argentine magazine whose editorial focus is on contemporary design and material culture. Her Butterfly Ring explores transformation, memory, and the relationship between the human body and nature through contemporary jewelry design. More.
THREE SUMMER EXHIBITIONS AT GALERIE MARZEE
Jonathan Boyd—Things Through Now and Then: Hauntologies of an Asemic Materialism. Tamia Dellinger—Face to Face. Ute Eitzenhöfer—Search and Circumstance. Info.
MATT LAMBERT TO LEAD NEW PROGRAM AT GLASGOW SCHOOL OF ART
They are charged with developing and shaping the MDes silversmithing and jewelry program, which will begin in fall 2026. Professor Stephen Bottomley, who heads Glasgow’s School of Design, describes lambert’s approach as original and polydisciplinamorous.
INTERNATIONAL FILIGREE EXHIBITION TURNED ITALIAN VILLAGE INTO A LABORATORY
Historically, filigree production made Campo Ligure one of the world capitals of this artisanal industry. The recent exhibition, held June 20–21, 2026, featured masterclasses on the art of jewelry, as well as photo exhibitions, themed talks, awards ceremonies, markets, and more.
AUCTION: “JEWELRY UNLIMITED”
On July 8, 2026, the block at Rago will have earrings by Art Smith, Carolyn Morris Bach; and Barbara Heinrich, brooches by Takashi Wada, Alexander Blank, Norman Weber, Lola Brooks, and Esther Knobel; a necklace and armband by Emmy van Leersum; a ring by Gijs Bakker; a necklace by Florian Weichsberger; pieces by William Spratling, Francisco Rebajes, and Antonio Pineda; earrings by Robert Lee Morris; and more. More.
MARK DAVIS TO TEACH AT ATLANTA JEWELRY SHOW
Ready to elevate fine jewelry with unconventional materials like vintage Bakelite or rare woods? Join Davis August 22–23, 2026, for “Designing and Engineering the Unexpected.” Master the technical precision required to seamlessly integrate alternative materials into luxury designs. Info. See Davis’s work here.
OPEN CALL: GEMZ 2026
Seeking the next cohort of jewelry artists, designers, and makers, graduated between 2023 and 2026 or self-taught with at least four years of active studio practice. This one-year program has three phases. It kicks off with online sessions from industry heavyweights. You then develop a project plan and pitch a physical piece to create. Finally, a select group will bring those ideas to life supported by one-on-one and group mentorship. Deadline: August 16, 2026. More.
CYD ROWLEY JEWELRY PART OF ACC OPEN STUDIO WEEKEND
The artist will welcome visitors to her studio on July 18–19, 2026, 11 am–5 pm, for the American Craft Council’s national craft event. Rowley is among a select group of artists chosen for this first-of-its-kind, nationwide celebration of craft in America, inviting the public into the creative spaces of craft artists across the country. Address: 10449 Metropolitan Avenue, Kensington, MD, US.
OPEN CALL: LOST IN JEWELRY MAGAZINE
The Lost Archive returns for its second edition of a curated digital editorial lookbook dedicated to archived, unreleased, experimental or forgotten jewelry pieces and the stories behind them. Deadline: July 27, 2026. Info.
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