The Ashmolean is to hold a special show of the work of artist-goldsmith, Dr Kevin Coates (b. 1950). Coates is a multi-talented London-based artist - a musician, jeweller, and sculptor in diverse materials. The virtuoso works of art he creates from gold, precious stones, shell, and other exotica, are both exquisite and fantastical. His work is to be found in private and public collections worldwide, including the V&A and British Museum, the Royal Museum of Scotland, the Cooper Hewitt (Smithsonian Institution) New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Following a successful solo exhibition at the Wallace Collection in London in 2011, Coates has been working on an ambitious new project, a “Bestiary” of sculptural jewels in a poetic elaboration of the bizarre medieval encyclopaedias known as Bestiaries, which assemble lore and myth about animals. Crucially, he has paired a series of individual creatures with their significant human, where the jewel is mounted in a modelled and painted Bestiary ‘page’. These include A Parrot for Flaubert; A Starling for Mozart; A Rhinoceros for Kaendler; and A Dodo for Mr. Dodgson. This new body of work, which Coates describes as “a voyage of discovery… of this dream Ark of mine”, begins its year-long national tour at the Ashmolean, alongside a selection of “Birthday jewels” which the artist has made over the years for his wife, Nel Romano, many of which will be exhibited for the first time in public.

Kevin Coates writes: “Here, I have made a Bestiary whose pages, in each case, are shared by the coupling of two individuals meeting across the great man/animal divide. These pages also have a concrete existence: they are wall-mounts, which each bear a jewel – a removable, wearable, jewel – through which I hope to express something of the joy I have in these special connections, overcoming, as they do, the want of a common language beyond that “great language” found in the eyes of animals…”

Professor Timothy Wilson, Keeper of Western Art, Ashmolean Museum, says: “These fantastically conceived and brilliantly executed virtuoso objects are the most eloquent and imaginative expressions for our time of the spirit of the great princely treasure chambers, the Kunstkammers, of Renaissance and Baroque Europe”.

Ashmolean Museum
Beaumont St
Oxford OX1 2PH United Kingdom
Ph. +44 (0)18 65278002
exhibitions.officer@ashmus.ox.ac.uk
www.ashmolean.org

Opening hours
Tuesday - Sunday from 10am to 5pm
Monday from10am to 5pm

Related images

  1. Kevin Coates (b. 1950), Pectoral brooch in a wall mount, A Giraffe for Saint Hillaire, 2013, Carved ‘fire’ carnelian, sapphire, carved engraved and dyed bone, silver, 18ct. gold (pins), Height: 8.5 cm; width: 6.8 cm, Signed and dated on reverse, © Kevin Coates. Photography Clarissa Bruce
  2. Kevin Coates (b. 1950), Brooch in a wall mount, A Hedgehog for Brahms, 2005, 20ct. gold, silver, coral, abalone shell, Height: 5 cm; width: 4 cm, © Kevin Coates. Photography Clarissa Bruce
  3. Kevin Coates (b. 1950), Ring in a wall mount, A Rhinoceros for Kaendler, 2013, 18ct. gold, silver, ‘harlequin’ opal, yellow sapphires
    Overall height: 4.6 cm; width: 4.3 cm, © Kevin Coates. Photography Clarissa Bruce
  4. Kevin Coates (b. 1950), Neckpiece in a wall mount, A Lion for Alexander, 2012, 18ct. gold, turquoise, citrine, black star sapphire, silver (back plate), Height of Lion mask: 8.85 cm; width of main section: 6.9 cm, © Kevin Coates. Photography Clarissa Bruce
  5. Kevin Coates (b. 1950), Brooch in a wall mount, A Crow for Ted Hughes, 2012, 18ct. gold, silver, diopside, Height: 7.1 cm; width: 6.6 cm, © Kevin Coates. Photography Clarissa Bruce
  6. Kevin Coates (b. 1950), Neckpiece in a wall mount, A Parrot for Flaubert, 2012, 18ct. gold, black mother-of-pearl, ancient iridescent glass fragment, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, carnelian, citrine, amethyst, silver, Height of neckpiece: 22.2 cm; width of pendant section: 9.8 cm, © Kevin Coates. Photography Clarissa Bruce