Dr. Petra Hölscher Unveils AMONG FRIENDS: 240+ Drutt Works at SCHMUCKmünchen

Dr. Petra Hölscher is presenting Among Friends: American and German Jewelry Artists from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection at Galerie Handwerk as part of SCHMUCKmünchen, a special show at the start of Munich Jewelry Week. The exhibition assembles a high-carat selection from Helen W. Drutt’s private collection, totaling around or over 240 works with Arnoldsche Verlagsanstalt’s catalogue breaking the display into 140 positions of American jewellery and almost 100 works by German artists.

Helen Williams Drutt is foregrounded as collector, gallery owner, mediator, and educator; the accompanying publication frames the installation as “a tribute to this grande dame of international studio jewelry and to her 60 years of collecting.” The programme for the book presentation lists greetings by Barbara Schmidt, welcomes by Dr. Markus Eder of the Danner-Stiftung and Prof. Dr. Angelika Nollert of Die Neue Sammlung, an introduction by Dr. Petra Hölscher, remarks on book design by Ina Bauer, a speech by Helen Williams Drutt from Philadelphia, and an epilogue by Claus Bury. Arnoldsche gives the book presentation time as 10.00 a.m. on 05-03-2026.

Hölscher, Senior Curator at Die Neue Sammlung, has shaped the exhibition with a curatorial practice she describes plainly: “Every time I walk through one of our storerooms, ideas for exhibitions seem to pop out of nowhere.” Her curatorial record at Die Neue Sammlung includes the multi-lingual Television exhibition that arranged some 60 televisions on Euro pallets to trace the object’s history, the Korea: Design + Poster show that brought together technology, ceramics, metal, mobile telephone, and jewelry, and thematic displays such as On the Second View. Kubus and Keimling.

Arnondsche’s text places the American selection in historical depth: “140 positions of American jewellery art represent its diversity over the last 70 years, from modernist-minimalist works to narrative works and jewelry objects with a strong socio-political statement.” The catalogue and the show emphasize jewelry as medium and narrative: works in Among Friends tell stories and address social, political, and religious themes while they experiment with materials, techniques, and forms, and they map exchanges between US and German practices.

Organisers and institutional partners are named prominently: the Handwerkskammer für München und Oberbayern and the Danner Foundation organise the special show with support from the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development and Energy. Galerie Handwerk’s own programming history is part of the exhibition’s backdrop; an account of the gallery’s development recalls, “When I took over management in 2003, there was a turning point... It was only when the whole thing took another leap after the opening of the Danner Rotunda in the Pinakothek der Moderne that we decided to also hold jewelry exhibitions in Galerie Handwerk parallel to the IHM. That was in 2008, with the exhibition about Enrico Nagai.”

Among Friends stages a cross-Atlantic conversation: Arnoldsche describes the German selection as showing how “the different development of contemporary jewellery in both countries, but also the mutual influences and similarities” can be read together. With roughly 240 works in the gallery and a new publication being presented on 05-03-2026, the exhibition reasserts Helen W. Drutt’s six decades of collecting as a shaping force in contemporary studio jewelry and offers a focused moment for collectors and curators to consider jewelry as socially engaged, material experimentation.