Helga Zahn: Jewelry, One-Off and Series

Book / Arnoldsche Artists

Published: 27.11.2016

Helga Zahn: Jewelry, One-Off and Series.

Editor:: Die Neue Sammlung - The Design Museum, Stadt Schwarzenbach an der Saale

Text by:: Petra Hölscher

Edited by:: Arnoldsche Art Publishers

Edited at:: Stuttgart

Edited on:: 2016

Technical data:: 104 pp., 22.3 x 29.5 cm, 69 ills. in colour and 14 in b/w. Hardcover

ISBN / ISSN:: 9783897904811

Price:: from 28 €

Order:: Amazon

Inner pages of the book

Not much is known about this woman, about this multi-talented artist who at the end of the 1950s headed from Schwarzenbach an der Saale, a small town on the edge of the Fichtel Mountains, for “Swinging” London and very soon was causing a real stir with her extraordinary jewelry.

Helga Zahn (1936-1985) was one of the leading jewellery artists in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s. The autodidact, who was raised in Schwarzenbach an der Saale, had a preference for silver and natural materials such as pebbles. Her one-off jewellery is formed from the clarity of simple geometric forms, the lightness and simplicity of the combinations and a reduced colour palette. With novel systematic thinking, in the mid-1960s she revolutionised the studio jewellery movement that was forming across the globe. With around a hundred jewellery objects, this current comprehensive review invites you on a journey of rediscovery and reappraisal of this exceptional artist.

Text in English and German

Helga Zahn is represented in numerous museums, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (UK), National Museum Wales, Cardiff (UK), Kunstgewerbemuseum - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (DE), Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt (DE), Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (DE), Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim (DE), Die Neue Sammlung - The Design Museum, Munich (DE).