The Wallace Collection

We are delighted when contemporary artists and designers draw inspiration from our collections, in all their variety. Thus we from time to time are able to mount exhibitions of contemporary art which takes its cue directly or indirectly from the Wallace Collection and its collections. These have included shows of recent work by the photographer Karen Knorr (2001), new paintings by Lucian Freud (2004) and Sèvres porcelain designed by modern artists (2006).

Every two years the Wallace Collection appoints an Associate Artist, who is able on a longer-term basis to study and work with the collections, with the aim of showing an exhibition of work in the Wallace Collection’s exhibition galleries at the end of the two years. The Associate Artist also becomes involved in our public programmes. 

The Wallace Collection is pleased to announce the appointment of Kevin Coates as Associate Artist. Coates is an artist goldsmith who creates jewels, table-pieces and sculptures and whose works now reside in collections as diverse as Downing Street, the Prince of Wales, Lichfield Cathedral, the V&A and private collections worldwide. 

Coates will be collaborating with the Collection for the next two years, working on a variety of projects, both taking inspiration from the Collection and re-interpreting the works of art in new ways and forms; in the process creating new meanings, stories and situations for the treasures. Coates’s Associate Artistship will culminate with an exhibition of his work in the exhibition galleries.  Marking the beginning of his Associateship, one of his pieces can be seen from July 12th as part of the exhibition Renaissance Silver from the Schroder Collection. The Schroder Cup, commissioned by the Goldsmiths Company in 1990 for Court member Bruno Schroder, will be the only contemporary piece in the exhibition. Miniatures of treasures from the Schroder Collection, such as the Netherlandish Nef and Nautilus Cup sit at the feet of the Cup’s Dragon. The Schroder Cup’s inclusion showcases Coates’s understanding and fascination with the great Renaissance pieces, techniques and stories of the past, his desire to re-interpret and breathe fresh life into them, and his stature within the contemporary world of goldsmithing.  

A Notebook of Pins will provide a more detailed glimpse for Wallace Collection visitors into Coates’s work. This display of his latest collection, which will open at the Wallace Collection in September, before moving to America in October, includes eight pieces directly inspired by the Collection, as Coates revisits the works of art anew for the start of his tenure as Associate Artist. An eclectic and diverse range of inspirations include a maiolica plate, a small bronze lion, Fragonard’s famous painting The Swing – a prime example of the system of gradual unveiling, mystery and perception prevalent in Coates’s thinking, and Watteau’s fête galantes. Watteau’s commedia dell’arte figures have long been present in Coates’s work; the Harlequins immediately involving, iconic, accessible and inviting, but infused with the vulnerability which was the true foundation of the Arcadian world of the fête galante. These tiny jewels will be mounted on pages, bearing the thought process and workings which went into their creation – allowing the viewer a snapshot into another world – that of the maker, and changing the perceptions of adornment normally associated with jewels. 

Throughout his career Coates has earned many commissions from the small and intimate to the grand and stately. Major commissions include the St George Centrepiece, commissioned by the Silver Trust for the private collection at 10 Downing Street for official functions; The Amity Cup, commissioned by the Goldsmiths’ Company; the Carrington Cup, commissioned by Sir Roy Strong for the retirement of Lord Carrington as Chairman of the Trustees of the V&A; the Leeds Castle Rosewater Maze Centrepiece and more recently the Charter Bell, another commission by the Goldsmiths’ Company.  

Kevin Coates - philosophy, inspiration & technique

The role of the jeweller often seems to fall slightly outside that of the wider art world yet the choice of Coates as Associate Artist is entirely fitting. Throughout history, jewellery may have acquired a monetary value which in some ways separates the jewellery maker from world of the sculptor or the painter, but the properties which originally made the art of adornment so prized – the magic, myth and almost tribal superstitions imbued in the wearing of jewels, mean that in the hands of the correct maker, jewels can posses as much spiritual meaning, complexity of message and emotional resonance as the greatest canvas. 

Coates’s work reflects this age old tradition. Respecting his materials and approaching his work as an alchemist and philosopher as much as an artist he sets out to embody his pieces with a soul, setting free the inherent energy and stories within them, and in doing so gifting the owner with a ‘wearable performance’. This mystery, this spirit, that which in earlier times and in different societies has made jewels into talismans - objects valued and embodied with the superstitious qualities of love, lust, status, power and ritual, is very much evident in Coates’s contemporary pieces.

Fragments of previous uses and lives are rewoven into the contemporary jewels – pieces include not only intricate goldsmithing techniques, precious emeralds and rubies, but also semi-precious opals and moonstones, fragments of ceramics from biblical times, Islamic beads and natural bones sourced from random wanderings across beaches. Components are prized for their colour, texture and pagination and all combine to make the pieces. Coates’s pieces aren’t just table ornaments or jewels ‘to be worn’. Smaller jewels are often made with wall settings, allowing them an existence of their own, as individual works of art with their own stories, perhaps even different ones to when worn by certain individuals, who inevitably bring their own contexts to their display. 

Coates’s work is complicated and extravagant, yet accessible and sometimes possessing a certain subtle humour, allowing expression to the many influences, themes and imagery recurrent throughout his work. Images of angels, frogs, rainbows, hands and figures reappear and are governed by wider themes of music, mathematics, literature and legend as intellectual ideas assume physical shape. No table piece, ring or brooch is simple. You may just as easily find that the Greek musician and poet Orpheus, a literary character such as Shakespeare’s Ariel or one of Uccello’s powerful battling horses have inspired a jewel to be born.  

All are united by a delicate balance of harmony, surely in some part due to Coates’s fascination with mathematics, time and music. His PHD thesis studied the geometry of numerical proportion in musical instruments and his work is governed by an understanding of how the tiniest change or alteration can irretrievably alter the perception, or spiritual message conveyed by a piece.  

Music itself is intrinsically linked and ever present in his works. Coates’s first dream was to become a musician and as well as being a goldsmith he is also an accomplished professional musician playing violin, viola, baroque mandolin, lute and viola d’amore. A whole range of his jewels are inspired by Mozart, yet the influence goes deeper still. Coates’s intricate drawings and notebooks are in many ways the equivalent to the musical rehearsal. His pieces translate a thought, story or emotion into visual and sensual reality, just as an instrument translates a composer’s piece of music. As such, no jewel or composition can be perceived in the same way by two different people who come into contact with them, nor may they necessarily be translated in the same way again by the same person.  

A sense of gradually unveiling is apparent, much as in eighteenth century paintings in the Collection. Meanings are multi-layered and below the surface, such as Watteau’s woman bathing in La Toilette, is she clothing herself and hiding embarrassed from the viewer or cheekily revealing herself to us instead? The Collection has also provided stimulation in more tangible ways as well. One of Coates’s earliest pieces was inspired by the great Poussin painting, A Dance to the Music of Time.

We look forward to many inspiring collaborations with Kevin over the next two years.