The International Collection of Contemporary Jewellery

After 25 years of "silver" shows, presented mainly as part of Legnica SILVER Festival, the Gallery of Art in Legnica decided to organize its achievements in the field of promotion of contemporary, avant-garde jewellery and in 2004 started building a permanent collection. Most of the works were obtained in the years 2013-2016 thanks to funding from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. Currently, the Collection consists of about half a thousand works, which makes it one of the largest international collections of contemporary artistic jewelry in Europe.

It consists of objects of the latest art, their vast majority of created in the 21st century. To a large extent, these are works that have been awarded in the Legnica International Jewellery Competition – the main event of Legnica SILVER Festival – as well as objects presented at accompanying exhibitions. The Collection includes works by artists from various parts of the world, showing a wide range of possibilities of using body decoration to create a work of art. The collection consists of examples of contemporary, unique jewellery as well as design objects and installations with the function of jewellery by the best Polish and foreign designers.

Legnica Collection bears witness to the wealth of contexts, techniques, materials and ways of thinking about jewellery – from speculation on the traditional understanding of ornamentation, through the medium of content, used to manifest the artist's views, to the work of conceptual art, in which the physical object serves only the function of conveying an idea. The Collection shows therefore the evolution of the concept of jewellery: from pure ornamentation to the medium of specific content and value of social importance. It is organized according to two systems: chronological and problematic.

Legnica's shows have been repeatedly devoted to current social or philosophical and aesthetic problems, generating surprisingly original, fresh, up-to-date and innovative works. In this respect, the Collection and the way it is organized may turn out to be an original and unique set of this kind.

In frame of Action Collection project we present contemporary jewellery from our collection on Instagram. You can find more informations about this activity HERE. Project is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund.