Stuart Devlin
Australian-born goldsmith and silversmith acclaimed for the originality and glamour of his designs
STUART DEVLIN, who has died aged 86, was described by the Duke of Edinburgh as “probably the most original and creative goldsmith and silversmith of his time, and one of the greats of all time”. Over some 50 years the Australian-born craftsman and designer created numerous medals (including eight gold and 16 silver coins for the Sydney 2000 Olympics and the medals for the founding awards of the Australian honours system, including the Order of Australia), coins for dozens of countries around the world, trophies, insignia, consumer products, clocks, jewellery and centrepieces. He designed one-off pieces in gold and silver, limited edition gift items as well as mass-produced designs, even diversifying into keyhole surgery instruments, furniture and houses.
Devlin adapted and devised new techniques, mixing gold and silver, introducing futuristic filigree forms and tactile surfaces with a variety of textures. At its peak his studio in London employed 60 craftsmen and produced thousands of objects in all sizes and price ranges.
Elizabeth Taylor commissioned a huge cocktail shaker as a gift for Richard Burton, though as Devlin recalled: “It was returned a year or two later for repairs, damaged due to a ‘domestic incident’.” Other commissions included a 9ft-long candelabrum weighing 46lb and able to hold 34 candles for the Duke of Westminster, which achieved the highest price – £45,600 in 2007 – for a piece of modern silver at auction.
Devlin became known in the 1970s and 1980s for gold and silver collectors’ items, the most popular being surprise Easter eggs and Christmas boxes. These included a creation billed in 1987 as “the world’s most expensive egg”, a mechanical device in yellow gold studded with 4,000 diamonds, which opened as it revolved to reveal 18 diamond-studded horses bobbing up and down on a rotating carousel.
Fabergé, said one observer, “must be turning in his grave”.
One of four sons of a selfemployed painter and decorator, Stuart Devlin was born on October 9 1931 in Geelong, Victoria, Australia. After school he won a scholarship to train as an art and metalwork teacher at the Gordon Institute of Technology, Geelong, for three years, followed by a further two in an ecclesiastical silversmithing workshop in Melbourne.
In 1951 he began teaching art in Wangaratta, after which he studied at a Melbourne college for a diploma in gold and silversmithing. He completed a three-year course in one, and was awarded three travelling scholarships, including one to the Royal College of Art in London.
There, his talent was spotted by the Goldsmiths’ Company, which bought most of the pieces he made as a student for their permanent collection and commissioned a table centrepiece for the tercentenary of the Royal Society.
He then went on a Harkness fellowship to Columbia University and in 1962 he returned to teaching in Melbourne. He won his first competition the following year – to design the first decimal coinage for Australia, an achievement which would bring him many similar commissions.
Returning to London in 1965 he founded a small workshop in Clerkenwell, where he was in the vanguard of a more individualistic trend among gold and silversmiths, developing personal styles and retailing products under their own names rather than making items for big manufacturers.
Disenchanted with Bauhaus and Scandinavian design, Devlin sought to invigorate smithing with “richness and romanticism”. Much of his work was industrially produced and some was relatively cheap, though it was the spectacular individual pieces that attracted attention.
Such was his success exhibiting for three years with Collingwood of Conduit Street that in 1972 he opened his own gallery on the ground floor of his workshop. The showroom quickly proved to be inadequate and after striking a deal with the Duke of Westminster Devlin opened his own retail premises in Conduit Street in 1979.
His reputation continued to grow, attracting the attention of the Queen, who gave him his first royal commission to make a cigar box as her wedding gift to the Crown Prince of Jordan.
However, after the collapse in the price of silver in the early 1980s he had to close his shop in Conduit Street and make most of his craftsmen redundant. This crisis also led to the breakdown of his first marriage, to Kim Hose.
His business recovered towards the end of the decade, but in 1989 he closed his workshop and moved to West Sussex, accepting only special commissions, providing work for many of his old craftsmen who had set up on their own.
Kevin Clancy, director of the Royal Mint when Devlin was recently commissioned to design a one-pound coin series, explained the success of his work: “Simplicity is the key … The coin is like a flag. It’s a statement of identity. Stuart’s coins are very emblematic and stylised, but at the same time there’s something immediately engaging and natural.”
Away from his work, Devlin enjoyed windsurfing off Mustique, where he had a home.
In 1980 he was appointed CMG for service to the art of design. He was granted a Royal Warrant in 1982 and in 1983 Goldsmiths’ Hall hosted a retrospective of his work. In 1988 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia and in 1996-7 he served as Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company.
He married secondly, in 1986, Carole Hedley-saunders, a former manager of his showroom, who survives him.
Stuart Devlin, born October 9 1931, died April 12 2018