SpeakerProfessor David Watkins was born in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom, in 1940. Trained as a sculptor and a professional musician, he took up jewellery design and making in the early 1970s, and has sustained an international recognition for innovative work in a wide range of materials and technologies ever since.
His jewellery is regularly represented in exhibitions of contemporary jewellery and has been acquired by more than 40 public collections around the world. He has written several books on the subject. He was head of the Department for Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery at the Royal College of Art, London, from 1984 to 2006. He is now professor of Research in Jewellery and the first director of the Centre for Jewellery Research, which he established at the RCA in September 2006.