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Dorothy Erickson AM

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Dorothy Erickson Jewellery available at Artsite  Contemporary, Sydney
Dorothy-Erickson-1464-Dampiera-necklace-02
Dorothy Erickson AM is an Australian Master artist-jeweller who has been exhibiting one of a kind jewellery, internationally since 1979, with over 40+ solo exhibitions in Australia and Europe.

Dr Dorothy Erickson was awarded the Member of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day2024 Honours list for significant service to jewellery design, and to the arts in Western Australia.

In 2020, Dorothy was inducted into The Design Institute of Australia, Hall of Fame, and received Curtin University's Lifetime Achievement Award. The Royal Western Australian Historical Society conferred a Fellowship on Dorothy Erickson in 2019 and she won the 2017 WA Heritage Award (Individual).  Her book Inspired by Light and Land: Designers and Makers in Western Australia 1829-1969, was shortlisted for the Premier's Book Award in 2016.

Dorothy Erickson AM (Phd, UWA 1992) is a significant researcher, writer and art critic in her own right. She has four books published to date, including:  A Joy Forever: The Story of Kings Park (2009); Gold and Silversmithing in Western Australia: A History (2010); Inspired by Light and Land: Designers and Makers in Western Australia 1829-1969 (2014)  and A Passion for Silversmithing: PHILIP NOAKES: Gold and Silversmith (2019) to her credit.

Dr Dorothy Erickson AM has been exhibiting at Artsite since 2011, and is represented in numerous public and private collections both in Australia and Internationally.

Bibliography ( Selected)

    • Moore, Margaret. Dorothy Erickson (monograph), published 2000
    • Cinderella Stories - Contemporary Jewellery from Western Australia - Meredith Hinchcliffe, pp 02-03. Craft Arts International No.83, 2011
    • Journeys in Design - Vibrant Contemporary Jewellers,  Dorothy Erickson, pp 60-63. World of Antiques and Arts Magazine, #81, August, 2011
    • Dorothy Erickson - Homage to Klimt in Jewellery, Craft Arts International (Sydney) no 62, 2004, pp. 98-99.
    • Dorothy Erickson, Kinetic jewellery - interacting with light and land, Kathryn Wells, Craft Australia Library series: Interview: 19 April 2011.
    • Anderson, Patricia. Contemporary Jewellery: Australia and New Zealand. Sydney: Thames & Hudson, Imprint Craftsman House,1998.
    • Anderson, Patricia, Contemporary Australian Jewellery — 1977-1987. Sydney: Millenium, 1988.

Public Collections (selected)

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT
Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Germany
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Curtin University, Perth, WA
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA
The South Australian Art Gallery, Adelaide, SA
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, QLD
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, TAS
The Powerhouse Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, NSW
Methodist Ladies College, Claremont, Perth, WA
The Holmes à Court Collection, Perth, WA
Inge Asenbaum Collection, Dallas Museum of Art, USA
Wendy Ramshaw Collection, London, UK
Alice and Louis Koch Collection, Swiss National Museum Zurich, Switzerland
National Fine Arts Museum, Valletta, Malta.

My work has varied considerably over the years but enduring interests, are colour, geometry and nature. I have bodies of work that reflect the light and land of Western Australia, others where the focus has been on kinetics in jewellery... my twenty-first century collection features precious gemstones to translate the paintings of Austrian Gustav Klimt into jewels to wear.

Dorothy has been immersed in the unique flora that is Western Australia's heritage for as long as she can remember. Erickson grew up on a farm at Bolgart. Her paternal grandfather had a goldmine and her mother was the naturalist, wildflower painter and author Rica Erickson. She studied botany as part of a teaching degree and the 1960s saw her enrolling at the Chelsea Institute in London while researching Australian plants at Kew Gardens and the Natural History Museum, South Kensington.

Her interest in the minutiae of nature has never waned and in researching the book, A Joy Forever: The Story of Kings Park, she turned her attention to wildflowers as a subject for her jewellery. Following her mother's death in 2009, many pieces were based on Rica’s paintings.

Few of the jewellery pieces are literal translations, instead they evoke the colour, form or habit of individual species of our precious and endangered floral heritage. ~ Dorothy Erickson.

Bibliography ( Selected)

  • Moore, Margaret. Dorothy Erickson (monograph), published 2000
  • Cinderella Stories - Contemporary Jewellery from Western Australia - Meredith Hinchcliffe, pp 02-03. Craft Arts International No.83, 2011
  • Journeys in Design - Vibrant Contemporary Jewellers,  Dorothy Erickson, pp 60-63. World of Antiques and Arts Magazine, #81, August, 2011
  • Dorothy Erickson - Homage to Klimt in Jewellery, Craft Arts International (Sydney) no 62, 2004, pp. 98-99.
  • Dorothy Erickson, Kinetic jewellery - interacting with light and land, Kathryn Wells, Craft Australia Library series: Interview: 19 April 2011.
  • Anderson, Patricia. Contemporary Jewellery: Australia and New Zealand. Sydney: Thames & Hudson, Imprint Craftsman House,1998.
  • Anderson, Patricia, Contemporary Australian Jewellery — 1977-1987. Sydney: Millenium, 1988.

Public Collections

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT
Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Germany
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Curtin University, Perth, WA
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA
The South Australian Art Gallery, Adelaide, SA
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, QLD
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, TAS
The Powerhouse Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, NSW
Methodist Ladies College, Claremont, Perth, WA
The Holmes à Court Collection, Perth, WA
Inge Asenbaum Collection, Dallas Museum of Art, USA
Wendy Ramshaw Collection, London, UK
Alice and Louis Koch Collection, Swiss National Museum Zurich, Switzerland
National Fine Arts Museum, Valletta, Malta.

Private Collections

Australia, U.S.A., Canada, UK, Europe, China, Japan, Namibia and New Zealand.

Bibliography ( Selected)

  • Moore, Margaret. Dorothy Erickson (monograph), published 2000
  • Cinderella Stories - Contemporary Jewellery from Western Australia - Meredith Hinchcliffe, pp 02-03. Craft Arts International No.83, 2011
  • Journeys in Design - Vibrant Contemporary Jewellers,  Dorothy Erickson, pp 60-63. World of Antiques and Arts Magazine, #81, August, 2011
  • Dorothy Erickson - Homage to Klimt in Jewellery, Craft Arts International (Sydney) no 62, 2004, pp. 98-99.
  • Dorothy Erickson, Kinetic jewellery - interacting with light and land, Kathryn Wells, Craft Australia Library series: Interview: 19 April 2011.
  • Anderson, Patricia. Contemporary Jewellery: Australia and New Zealand. Sydney: Thames & Hudson, Imprint Craftsman House,1998.
  • Anderson, Patricia, Contemporary Australian Jewellery — 1977-1987. Sydney: Millenium, 1988.

Public Collections

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, ACT
Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim, Germany
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
Curtin University, Perth, WA
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, WA
The South Australian Art Gallery, Adelaide, SA
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, QLD
Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, TAS
The Powerhouse Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, NSW
Methodist Ladies College, Claremont, Perth, WA
The Holmes à Court Collection, Perth, WA
Inge Asenbaum Collection, Dallas Museum of Art, USA
Wendy Ramshaw Collection, London, UK
Alice and Louis Koch Collection, Swiss National Museum Zurich, Switzerland
National Fine Arts Museum, Valletta, Malta.

Private Collections

Australia, U.S.A., Canada, UK, Europe, China, Japan, Namibia and New Zealand.

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