10 International Celebrities : 10 Scottish Artists

A Sensational Collection of Scottish Silver
-Nicola Benedetti - Robbie Coltrane OBE - Sir Sean Connery - Billy Connolly CBE - Lulu OBE - Sir Cameron Mackintosh - Ewan McGregor - Alexander McQueen CBE - Ian Rankin OBE - Sharleen Spiteri -

Silver of the Stars – The Project

SotS is a collection of contemporary Scottish silver, created by pairing ten of Scotland’s best known names – including Ewan McGregor, Sean Connery and Billy Connolly – with ten of Scotland’s finest silversmiths. Each pair had to come up with a design for a piece of silver based on the universal theme of “A Drink with a Close Friend”, which has resulted in a collection of silver absinthe goblets, teapots, claret jugs etc. Each piece is accompanied by a banner featuring photos of the celebrity and silversmith, and an individual story by each celebrity about who they would share their drink with, where they would have it, what they would talk about and so on. You can see these photos and stories on www.silverofthestars.com

World Tour

SotS is being exhibited around the world (accompanied by The Millennium Collection for Bute House, the contemporary collection created for the First Minister’s use at formal dinners at Bute House; and 6 historically significant pieces from the National Museums of Scotland). Since January, it has been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, The Forbes Collection in New York (opening during Tartan Week), and it is currently on show at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, where 1million visitors are expected to see it. Next stop is Beijing, followed by Kyoto and Edinburgh.

Beijing

The exhibition will be on show from 3rd-21st September at the Beijing World Art Museum. There will be an opening reception for 200-250 people at the museum on 3rd September. In addition to this, on Saturday 1st September, a Symposium on silversmithing will be held at Tisinghua University (organised by Edinburgh University and National Museums of Scotland) to coincide with the exhibition.

Silver of the Stars: International Conference on Silversmithing

Organiser: School of Arts, Culture & Environment, University of Edinburgh
Co-organisers: Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing World Art Museum

09:15-09:30  Opening remarks
Prof. Li Dangqi (Tsinghua University) and Dr. Hsueh-man Shen (University of Edinburgh)

09:30-10:30  History of Scottish Decorative Art
Dr. David Caldwell (National Museums of Scotland)

10:30-11:30  Post-1945 Scottish Art
Mr. Bill Hare (University of Edinburgh)

11:30-12:30  The Beauty of Metalwork
Prof. Zhang Fuye (Tsinghua University)

12:30-14:00  Lunch break

14:00-15:00  Art Nouveau in Metalwork
Prof. Zhang Gan (Tsinghua University)

15:00-16:00  A Survey of the Metalwork by Chinese Minorities
Prof. Tang Xuxiang (Tsinghua University)

16:00-17:00 Demonstration by Mrs. Helen Henderson (Glasgow School of Art)

17:00-17:10  Closing remark
Mrs. Wang Limei (Beijing World Art Museum)