Dorrie Nossiter 1893-1977
Dorrie Nossiter was an Arts and Crafts jewellery maker known for her exquisite naturalistic form jewellery. She was born in 1893 in Birmingham and attended the Municipal School of Art from 1910-1914, here she studied drawing with a focus on drawing plant form. After this Nossiter and her family moved to Dorset where she was greatly inspired by the multitude of colours displayed in the garden, and then found herself in London where she created the majority of her work. Dorrie spend the last years of her life in Sunbury-on-Thames and died in 1977.
Working over multiple decades, Nossiter created a vast array of jewellery items, with her signature style of eclectic gem set jewellery growing ever stronger over the years. Naming all her pieces things like ‘Prelude to Adventure’ and ‘The heavenly twins’, Nossiter had an incredible sense of meaning behind every piece and gave each item a sense of individuality and character.
Nossiter seldom marked her artwork, making her name and style become easily confused with other makers of the time. Maker Sibyl Dunlop is often accredited for her work as it is of a similar style to Nossiters.
Her work is a phenomenal display of Arts and Crafts workmanship, and we are pleased to be able to showcase an array of designs in our 16th of April Purple shop - The Anthony Gardner Collection.
