All About Angela Cummings Jewelry

If you love beautiful things and have an affinity for the ocean and everything connected to it, you have probably run across some pieces of Angela Cummings’ jewelry in the past. The artisan was trained in Italy and Germany. Cummings became a celebrated Tiffany & Co. jewelry designer in 1967. By 1975, she designed jewelry under her own name. Almost a decade later, she began selling her creations in boutiques.

It was a spider web necklace that Cummings designed for Tiffany, which would make her a household name. It featured gold and diamonds. Other famous pieces included elm leaves earrings, seagull brooches and necklaces featuring petals, diamonds and emeralds. Although this jewelry artist made her name by turning precious gems and metals into unforgettable designer pieces, she became famous when she began incorporating unorthodox materials in her creations.

After leaving Tiffany & Co. in 1984, she began signing her creations. Jewelry lovers were amazed by the broad range of media she worked in as well as the wide span of price tags attached to her pieces. While some jewelry items were only affordable for New York’s high society, others cost so little that they were even in the budget of a teenager.

Her creations continued to mirror nature and playfully integrate the various elements found therein. Zebra patterns competed with wood grains. Black jade, South Sea pearls and burnished silver were just a few of the materials found in her pieces. Cleverly adding a new dimension to her work, Cummings intentionally moved away from perfect symmetry in the creation of some of her pieces. As a result, these items are particularly visually compelling and even create the illusion that there is movement within the pieces.

By 2003, Cummings was successful but had her sights set on other projects. A building project in Utah took up a lot of her time and was partially responsible for the closure of her boutiques. In candid interviews, the jewelry designer also admitted that the cost of doing business with retailers was getting too prohibitive. The pressure to create new and exclusive designs on a consignment basis became financially too costly to make good business sense. Other jewelry industry greats echoed her concerns and warned that the smaller design houses would not be able to stay in business with the financial pressures brought on by retailing policies.

Although Cummings had gone into semi-retirement, she recently returned with new pieces. Teaming up with Assael, Angela Cummings has revived some of her sea-inspired designs and has begun expanding on the theme. This collection featured soft lines, rounded edges and plenty of pearls. Eschewing uniformity in the selection of her pearls, the intentional asymmetry that had become a hallmark of her designs found a revival.

Peter Suchy seeks and sells many Angela Cummings jewelry pieces along with our wide variety of vintage and estate jewelry. We hope you like us on Facebook and be sure to check out our Pinterest Boards for vintage jewelry inspirations!