Silver in the Fast Lane - 40 Years of Fox Silver
Richard and Serena Fox at their studio in South London. Photography by Paul Read.
The Goldsmiths’ Company exhibition, Silver in the Fast Lane, celebrates 40 years of Fox Silver, one of the UK’s most successful design-led manufacturing silversmiths of contemporary silver and studio jewellery. Established in 1982, Fox Silver is run by husband-and-wife team, Richard and Serena Fox. The company produces bespoke pieces using traditional hand skills and cutting-edge technology. It is particularly known for its FORMULA 1® trophies, its work for luxury brands including Bulgari and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, and its silver for churches, corporations and No.10 Downing St.
The exhibition displays outstanding loans from private and public collections which trace the development of the workshop from its earliest years. As fellow silversmith Grant Macdonald comments, Richard is ‘an excellent trade designer with the essential commercial edge and an enviable back catalogue of excellent pieces.’ Serena, who trained at Camberwell School of Art, often collaborates with Richard on the design of trophies, cups, livery badges and other bespoke commissions, as can be seen in the exhibition. Her work as a jeweller who has often shown at Goldsmiths’ Fair is here too, including new pieces and several private jewellery commissions which have been specially lent to the exhibition. Each commission has its own story to tell. People give Serena much-loved gems which she reinterprets to make highly-wearable new jewels. These often have great personal significance to the wearer, such as the poignant memorial brooch commissioned for a mother whose son had died suddenly at a young age. The centre of the 18-carat white and yellow gold brooch uses his signet ring and the six groups of rubies—his birth stone—which surround it represent members of the immediate family. Also on display is a spectacular jacket which was made for the Duke of Argyll with silver buttons in the shape of the salmon which were sacred to his ancestors as High Kings of Ireland. Both pieces show, in their different ways, how people entrust Serena with their stories.
FIA FORMULA 1® First Place Driver Trophy for Abu Dhabi 2023. Photography by Richard Valencia.
There are very personal commissions for Richard and Serena, too, such as Richard’s Court Cup made by his apprentice Oscar Saurin as his ‘masterpiece’ on the Goldsmiths’ Company Apprenticeship scheme. The Cup has the birthstones of Richard’s and Serena’s children set into the knop. Alongside this is a recently-completed medal by Julian Cross showing Richard as Prime Warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company. There is a superb portrait on the front, set against the backdrop of the Millennium Bridge. On the reverse of the medal is a design alluding to different areas of work associated with Fox Silver, with at its centre the workshop logo surrounded by the pawprints of the Fox family dogs. The specialist makers in the Fox Silver workshop are celebrated too in the exhibition through complex pieces which sit somewhere between silversmithing and engineering---not least the motor racing trophies so spectacularly on view, which are seen by a global audience.
Richard’s strong interest in both design and engineering goes back to his student days at Middlesex and the Royal College of Art, and to his first commission for a motor racing trophy from Bernie Ecclestone in 1984. He is now internationally recognised as the leading British designer and producer of winner’s trophies for FORMULA 1®and the World Rally Championship. such as the FORMULA 1® Drivers’ World Championship Trophy, 1995. Commissioned by Bernie Ecclestone, it is designed to last for 100 years and displays facsimile signatures of winning drivers from 1950 - to the present, with spaces for further signatures up to 2050. This trophy and others displayed in the exhibition prove the point made by Bernie Ecclestone: ‘I’ve seen countless trophies and said that they should not be used as they did not compare to the masterpieces designed by Richard and crafted by Fox Silver. Each trophy is a symbol of celebration and excellence.’ The most recent trophy on show is that designed for the FORMULA 1®Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, 2023, which takes the dramatic form of a peregrine falcon, the national emblem of the United Arab Emirates. Richard designed the trophy in three components using rapid prototyping, electroforming and gilding to create a dynamic sculpture. He comments: `sometimes designs take a long time---this one flowed.’
Richard Fox drafting designs. Photography by Paul Read.
Fox Silver’s work for the church can be admired in the exhibition, including the recently-completed crozier for the Bishop of Croydon. It combines references to Croydon with elements with a special resonance for the Archbishop who commissioned it, the historian and sociologist Dr Marlene Rosemary Mallet. The staff is made in three parts using mopane wood from Africa. Serena carved the Dwennimmen, the Adinkra symbol of strength and humility, made up of two butting rams’ heads, which appears within the curl of the crozier. The crozier is hollow cast, with two applied spiralling wires with beech and oak leaves cast from Serena’s models to represent the crest of Croydon. The enamelled wave pattern at the base of the crozier is a reference to the river Wandle which flows beneath Croydon, drawing different communities together. Equally appropriate for its function is the deceptive simplicity of the Goldsmiths’ Company commission for a chalice in honour of its patron saint, St Dunstan. Church silver by the Fox Silver workshop is used daily by communities all over the world and has a special quality, largely because Richard, who was a church chorister in Warwickshire as a boy, understands that `True solemnity and prayer---for any religious denomination—requires calm, occasion and theatre.’
Richard’s most spectacular and ambitious piece to date is a special commission from the Silver Trust, which was set up in 1987 to promote contemporary British designer silver for the use of the Prime Minister at 10 Downing St, and at British embassies across the world. In 2004 Richard collaborated with the sculptor, Angela Conner, on a table fountain centrepiece, `Principia’, for use at state dinners. The sculpture is named after Isaac Newton’s 1687 treatise in which he explained his laws of motion and the concept of gravity. It is the movement of water inside the hollow gilded globe or inner bud which controls the movement of the outer silver petals through a hydraulic pressure valve which makes them slowly unfold. Distilled water is poured in through a hole in the top of the sphere. This drips from pipettes in the petals onto the water lily pads beneath. These take the form of finely-balanced paddles so that, as they fill, each will eventually tip water into the basin below. The movement powers the slow, mesmeric opening of the highly-polished petals. It took Richard and his workshop manager John Cutbush two years to design, engineer and make this kinetic sculpture, as realising Angela Connor’s brilliant concept demanded the highest skills in engineering, hydraulics and silversmithing. The entire metamorphosis from closed bud to open flower takes an hour and a half---the length of a state banquet at No.10. Water gathers in the highly polished leaves of the basin which reflect flickering candlelight to create just that sense of `movement and mystery’ that the Silver Trust hoped to evoke through this special commission. The sculpture has been specially repaired and cleaned for the exhibition. We plan to make a video showing its movement, in celebration of 40 years of Fox Silver.
Principia, Richard Fox and Angela Conner. Photography Richard Valencia.
Pieces on display from the Company’s Collection of British designer silver show how the Company was quick to identify Richard’s promise by awarding him his first major commission of a pair of candelabra—still regularly used in the Hall—in 1983. Relationships and chance encounters made through Goldsmiths’ Hall have helped to shape the development of the Fox Silver workshop. Both Richard and Serena have long been associated with the Goldsmiths’ Company: Serena is a Liveryman, while Richard served as a past Prime Warden in 2020-21 and as the first Trade Warden in the Company’s history from 2022-23.
Richard was a founding member and later Chair of Contemporary British Silversmiths, the leading association for contemporary silver in the UK which aims to `inspire creativity and promote excellence in design and craftsmanship’. He has lectured at Middlesex University and at the Royal College as a dedicated teacher and mentor: `I am passionate about supporting the next generation of silversmiths. I am still learning so much. As a designer, you never stop learning.’ In 2012, he was closely involved in setting up the Goldsmiths’ Centre in Clerkenwell, the UK’s leading charity for the professional training of goldsmiths. He comments on the Company’s role and its contribution to national life:
“One of the Goldsmiths’ Company’s aims is to ensure that jewellers, silversmiths and their allied trades are thriving and contributing to the national economy. It is more important than ever that we look at the ways in which we can ensure our craft and trade remains one of the most vibrant and successful in the world.”
Aqua Water Swirl Earrings, Serena Fox. Photograph by Richard Valencia.
The exhibition at Goldsmiths’ Hall will be open to the public for free by prior booking online from 10 June to 22 June. A brand-new book about Fox Silver will be launched alongside the exhibition, accompanied by a short film by documentary filmmaker Sarah Fox, charting the journey of the Formula 1®️ Abu Dhabi Grand Prix trophy from workshop to track. There will be an exciting series of celebratory events, interviews, handling sessions and creative workshops run between the Goldsmiths’ Company, The Goldsmiths’ Centre, and Fox Silver.
Silver in the Fast Lane is open to the public from 10 June to 22 June 2024, 10am to 4pm, Monday to Saturday.
Entry is free but booking is essential.
Written by Dr Dora Thornton, Curator of the Goldsmiths’ Company Collection