Silver September is a series events running at various locations throughout Edinburgh, celebrating metalwork and jewellery and featuring Scotland’s leading engraver, Malcolm Appleby. If you are in Edinburgh around this time – this is a great opportunity to see his outstanding work.

Born in 1946, Malcolm Appleby is widely recognised as one of the world’s leading engravers. He trained at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, Sir John Cass School of Art and the Royal College of Art and proceeded to establish his own studio in Perthshire in the late 1960s.

Throughout his career he has received countless private commissions as well as many notable public ones, including a commission by The Silver Trust for a condiment set for 10 Downing Street, another for the permanent collections of The National Museums Scotland, for which he produced an impressive 57cm tall silver cup and cover, the engraving of the orb on the Prince of Wales Coronet, the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Diamond Stakes Trophy for De Beers, the 500th anniversary silver cup for the London Assay Office and the silver centrepiece for the New Scottish Parliament.

In 2011, Louis Osman and Appleby’s ‘Prince of Wales Cup’ sold at Bonhams’ ‘Distinguished Designs’ sale for £75,000, setting a new record for any post-war silver or gold item.

His contemporary designs in jewellery and metal forms are characterised by a commitment to the combination of surface quality and form, achieved practically through original and highly skilled engraving, hammering and texturing techniques, and the innovative mixing of materials, such as the fusion of gold and steel. A storyteller in metal, Appleby’s designs take their conceptual inspiration from the natural and mythological world, and are articulated in a diverse range of expressionist, abstract, figurative and decorative styles.

Silver September

MODERN MASTERS [Metalwork and Jewellery] 9 September – 3 October 2015
The Scottish Gallery, 16 Dundas Street, Edinburgh:
www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/modernmastersmetal

THE SILVERSMITH’S ART: MADE IN BRITAIN TODAY
18 September 2015 – 4 January 2016
An exhibition featuring work from the collection of the Goldsmiths’ Company
National Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh:
www.nms.ac.uk/national-museum-of-scotland/whats-on/the-silversmiths-art/

The Annual GLENMORANGIE LECTURE
22 September 2015
19:00 to 20:00 – “Question Time with Malcolm Appleby!”
www.nms.ac.uk/national-museum-of-scotland/whats-on/glenmorangie-annual-lecture-malcolm-appleby/