Angela Cummings Jewelry - The Art Of Making Timeless Pieces
Angela Cummings' jewelry pieces are inspired by themes found in nature and are considered by critics to be timeless works of art.
Angela Cummings is one of the world's most renowned jewelry designers. Born in 1944 during World War II in Austria, she arrived with her family in America when she was just three years old.
The famous designer later returned to Europe for higher education. She went to Italy, where she studied art in Perugia, and to West Germany, where she learned jewelry design, graduating from the Zeichenakademie in Hanau with a degree in goldsmithing and gemology.
In 1968, Angela Cummings returned to New York and began her career under the tutelage of an artisan at Tiffany & Company, and seven years later launched a collection under her own name.
Angela Cummings Jewelry - Pure Magic
Angela Cummings' designs were made mainly in 18-carat gold inlaid with jade, pearl, opal, lapis lazuli, wood, and coral with themes depicting the beauty of nature, from flora to fauna. The themes of her creations included shells, dragonflies, sea foam, feathers, and vine leaves.
An article published in People magazine in 1982 featured an assemblage of rose petals, one of her most beloved designs. Angela Cummings is said to have created a gold rose petal necklace and earring set after accidentally crushing a rose in her hand.
But 18K gold wasn't the only precious metal Angela Cummings used in her creations. She also incorporated platinum or silver, while using diamonds and precious and semi-precious gemstones. Sometimes she juxtaposed special materials with less conventional materials, such as wood.
With the magical jewelry she created, Angela Cummings broke the rules of traditional costume jewelry making by using an abundance of color.
Angela Cummings used classical techniques to create jewelry, such as precious metals inlaid in iron, a process known as "damascene".
In 1984, Angela Cummings decided to open boutiques bearing her name. Although she worked with Tiffany, she partnered with her husband Bruce Cummings, a gemologist. Together, they opened the first Angela Cummings Fine Jewelry Boutique inside a New York department store, Bergdorf Goodman. Other boutiques in Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus, and Saks Fifth Avenue followed.
Angela Cummings Accessories
But Angela Cummings didn't limit herself to creating just jewelry, she also designed leather tableware and accessories.
In the meantime, she also enriched the palette of materials she used in her jewelry design, such as black opal, South Sea cultured pearls, and black jade.
To make her creations more accessible to a wider range of customers, Angela Cummings has created some of her designs using less expensive materials. Over time, she opened several boutiques in America and Japan.
In the 1990s, Angela Cummings' style used movement. The jewelry she created depicted curving leaves, waves that swirled around the neck, or twisting stems. Others had an Asian influence, featuring jade-infused cloud shapes. She ended the decade with a more abstract collection, combining precious and semi-precious stones with metals.
Angela Cummings retired in 2003. She closed her business and moved to Utah with her family, but ten years later, she was back in the jewelry design world collaborating with the pearl specialists at Assael. The result: 25 pieces of cultured pearl and diamond jewelry crafted in platinum and gold.
Angela Cummings' jewelry continues to receive acclaim from critics and jewelry lovers alike. Whether for the pieces created for Tiffany & Company in the 1970s and 1980s or for the jewels designed under her own name, Angela Cummings' work remains admired for its beauty, comfort, and signature style, which she has perfected throughout her fantastic career.
