Andrew Grima The jeweler of Sixties London, was one of the most innovative jewelry designers of his generation, whose cutting-edge designs attracted clients such as Jacqueline Onassis, Ursula Andress, Princess Margaret and the Queen. Born in Rome in 1921, Grima moved to London with his family in 1926. He graduated from Nottingham University, and when the war beganhe was recruited as an engineer to the 7th Indian Division, serving in India and Burma until 1946. Grima's passion at that time was for painting, but after demobilisation he found himself working in the accounts room of H J Company, the small jewelry workshop owned by his father-in-law. One day they received a visit from two salesmen bearing suitcases bulging with Brazilian jewels including vast quantities of aquamarines, amethysts and citrine. Inspired, Grima persuaded his father-in-law to buy the lot, and promptly used them to design his first collection. The results ? rugged, sculptural and textured ? were highly original and refreshingly unlike the detailed set pieces representing small animals or insects in fashion at the time. Instead, Grima favoured a rougher look, using larger stones to create unusual eye-catching textures. He preferred to use gold rather than silver and, unlike many of his fellow jewelers of the time, Grima never made any jewel in great quantity. Embracing the mood of the 1960s, his off beat designs were stimulated by a landmark show of modern art, sculpture and jewellery organised in 1961 by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths. The Vogue photographer Lee Miller had brought in art by Picasso, while sculptures were specially commissioned from fashionable postwar sculptors including Kenneth Armitage and Elisabeth Frink. Grima was asked to transform their designs into wearable jewels, and eventually he submitted his original designs too. Grima's position as the ?It? jeweler of Swinging London was consolidated through a friendship with Lord Snowdon, who was invited to Grima's workshop after writing an article making the provocative claim that there was nothing exciting in contemporary jewelry design. Impressed by Grima's abstract bold jewels, Snowdon began to buy Grima's work for his Princess Margaret, then his wife and in 1966 Prince Philip gave the Queen a Grima brooch made from carved rubies from an Indian head ornament mounted on molten gold and diamonds. This was one of a 12-piece collection that won the 1966 Duke of Edinburgh's prize for elegant design. The Queen wore it for her 2007 Christmas Day speech, the day before Grima's death. In 1966 the Royal Family had awarded Grima a warrant to supply them with jewelry. The same year Grima won the Queen's Award for Industry and opened his first shop in Jermyn Street. Designed by his architect brothers, Godfrey and George, the exterior matched Grima's style, featuring organic latticework of steel and slabs of slate, and was inset with display windows resembling brilliant jewels. The interior was equally show-stopping: two floors linked by a Perspex spiral staircase. The shop was described as ?a jewel of modern architecture in its own right? and opened by Lord Snowdon. In 1969 Grima was commissioned by Omega to make 85 unique watches in a collection that came to be known as About Time. Taking 64 craftsmen a year to make, each timepiece was encased in a gemstone rather than in glass. Grima described the commission as ?the greatest challenge of his career?, explaining that his aim in the collection had been ?to see time through stones?. By then Grima had expanded his business, opening galleries in New York, Sydney and Tokyo. In the 1960s and 1970s he produced themed collections inspired by the Zeitgeist, with titles such as Rock Revival, using rough minerals; Supershells and Sticks and Stones. Between 1964 and 1976, he won 11 De Beers Diamond International Design Awards. His career suffered a setback in the early 1980s after a new business partnership ended with Grima's partner being declared bankrupt, and in 1986 Grima resigned his royal warrant and emigrated with his wife to Switzerland. In 2006 Bonhams organised a special auction of Grima jewels. He is survived by his wife, three children from his first marriage and one from his second. Andrew Grima was born on May 31, 1921. He died on December 26, 2007, aged 86