Andreas Gmur,

the story of an artist and a jeweler

The child’s desires mature through adulthood

Originally from the “Flat Country” as the Belgian singer Jacques Brel sang so well, I grew up in the alleys of Brussels. Since my early childhood, I have been passionate about colors and drawing. As a child, nothing made me happier than receiving a large box of colored pencils with which I would spend hours drawing and creating.

After a long career in large groups and consulting for large companies, a wind of change rose. The desires of the little boy surfaced once again. The sole activity that linked my childhood and the family man I had become, was the love of art and painting expressed through my drawings and paintings.

My family heritage and my passion for art naturally led me to choose a field of art with which I could express myself fully: jewelry.

When family heritage is transmitted as a force, a passion

It is with emotion and gratefulness that I remember visiting my grandfather’s jewelry workshop as a child. Afternoons spent observing him molding metals, cutting, and polishing diamonds and respectful exchanges with his clients. I smile when I recall the chunks of pure gold, he let me play with using his tools. I had no idea of the value of the ore in my hands. At the end of the day he would gather it all up and melt it down again into bullion.

His passion, his elegance and his skill always fascinated me and were inspirational in defining the guidelines of adulthood, followed by my immersion into the world of jewelry. I have always wanted to honor his legacy, sadly he never knew me as a jeweler. I hope he is proud of me for reviving our family heritage.

(Photo: My grandfather polishing a diamond, an extract from his book Von Diamant zum Brillant G. Schaub)

The love of painting as an expression of jewelry creation

I would like to give back to jewelry, its place in the world to which it belongs: Art.

Jewelry is an art. Like the world of painting, jewelry has its great masters and more humbler servants, it also undergoes copies, mass productions … nevertheless, the creative process must lead us to the question of who we are and our feelings. Like a shudder in front of a painting, I wish the customer to feel the same emotion in front of the jewel she herself created with my help.

I consider each unique piece as a work of art.

In order to bring these two worlds even closer together, my passion for jewelry and my pleasure in painting, I developed a creative approach where the jewel is designed through successive sketches and finally symbolized by a painting with charcoal, watercolors and India ink.

(Photo: Creation Andreas Gmur: The Tree of Life, 2004, acrylic/coal on canvas, extracted from a set of 9 paintings)

The marriage of family and Parisian jewelry traditions

When the word jewelry is uttered, directly, we think of Paris and the century-old tradition of silverware, precious metalwork and gems.

Naturally, I headed to the City of Light to acquire the skills and quality of the work of the great jewelers. With the greatest masters, I followed for three beautiful and exciting years, at the High School of Jewelry in Paris, their training and advice.

When I opened my boutique workshop in Geneva in October 2016, the recognition of my teachers and masters in a little word of encouragement was for me the most beautiful reward.

I completed this traditional teaching with training on new tools and modern techniques that have also invaded this very classic world.

Becoming aware of the world’s beauty and the jewels it offers us

By passion for colors and for love of precious stones, I trained and graduated as a gemologist specializing in stones used in jewelry.

Traveling the world, discovering the valleys where are extracted from the Earth these magnificent translucent stones that will become thanks to expert hands, resplendent jewels, I have learned to be humble in front of the earth and its beautiful power of creation. I have developed a network of contacts (Thailand, Sri Lanka, Africa…) made up of people who have the same respect for nature and the same gratitude for the beauties that the world offers us.

I strive to know as well as possible those who provide me with the gems, to know their past and their ethics. I believe in the transmission of earthly and universal energy through stones and I do not want a beautiful stone to be tainted by any negative act on its energy.

The influence of architecture in my creations

The creations also come to life at the heart of my own aesthetic influences. Undoubtedly, architecture plays a major role in my jewelry creation.

I like the complexity of architectural construction expressed in simple forms and easy to aesthetically understand. I apply those same aesthetic principles to jewelry where the technical difficulty is hidden is a direct reading of the lines.

So how not to fall in love with the quattrocento which saw the return of the classicism while appropriating new technical prowess; where the majestic dome of Brunelleschi, certainly with traditional forms, displays with all its height the mastered skill of its realization.

You will find, through my creations, this love for architecture, not only Italian, not only of that century, but a love for the universal architecture of antiquity to the contemporary, from Europe to Asia.