{{Short description|English artist and jeweller (1862–1929)}} {{about||the pathologist and cancer researcher|Edith Kate Dawson}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} {{Infobox person | name = Edith Dawson | image = Edith Dawson.jpg | alt = | caption = Dawson, c.1896 | birth_name = Edith Brearey Dawson | birth_date = 1862 | birth_place = Croydon, Surrey | death_date = 4 March 1929 | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = Artist, jeweller and member of the Arts and Crafts movement | spouse = Nelson Dawson (1893) | known_for = | notable_works = }}
[[File:Edith dawson, placca smaltata (1902) in cornice d'argento di nelson dawson (1922).jpg|thumb|An enamel plaque by Edith Dawson in a silver frame by Nelson Dawson]] '''Edith Brearey Dawson''' (née '''Robinson'''; 1862 – 4 March 1929) was an English artist, jeweller and member of the Arts and Crafts movement.
==Biography== Edith Robinson was born in Croydon, Surrey, to Quaker parents. In the 1880s Robinson was working as an art teacher and earning extra money through selling watercolours, primarily depicting cottage gardens and flowers.<ref>Rhoda Bickerdike (nee Dawson), "The Dawsons: An Equal Partnership of Artists," Apollo, November 1988, p. 321.</ref>
In 1893 she married Nelson Dawson in London.<ref name="sgla">{{Cite web |url=https://sculpture.gla.ac.uk/view/person.php?id=msib2_1203113444 |title=Mrs Edith Brearey Dawson - Mapping the Practice and Profession of Sculpture in Britain and Ireland 1851-1951 |website=sculpture.gla.ac.uk |access-date=2018-04-28}}</ref> He was an architecturally trained painter and metalworker.<ref name=Wolf /> The two had met in an art shop in Scarborough, where Dawson was working as an assistant.<ref>Charlotte Gere and Geoffry Munn (1989), Artists' Jewellery: Pre-Raphaelite to Arts and Crafts, The Antique Collectors Club {{ISBN|1 85149 024 8}}</ref>
In the early 1890s Nelson Dawson attended a series of lectures on enamelling given by Alexander Fisher. It is unclear whether he then taught Edith the skill or whether they attended the lectures together.<ref name=Wolf>Toni Lesser Wolf, "Women Jewelers of the British Arts and Crafts Movement", The Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Vol 14 (Autumn 1989), p.33</ref> The two subsequently collaborated on jewellery, with Edith Dawson creating the enamels and Nelson Dawson the metalwork. Edith Dawson was a perfectionist and her enamels are of exceptionally high quality, with a delicate, jewel-like appearance that is easily recognisable. Examples of the Dawsons' work can be found in the Victoria and Albert Museum<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O76583/pendant-dawson-edith-brearey/ |title=Pendant |website=collections.vam.ac.uk |language=en |access-date=2018-04-28}}</ref> and the British Museum.
The couple moved to Chiswick where they set up a workshop. During the busiest years they employed up to twenty craftsmen. In 1900 they exhibited 125 pieces of jewellery at the Fine Art Society in Bond Street. However, by 1914 the couple were in financial difficulties and they reduced their metalwork output. They continued to create, and in 1917 exhibited several commemorative and heraldic plaques at the Royal Academy including one bearing the Arms of Trinity College, Cambridge in bronze and champlevé enamel.<ref name="sgla" />
In 1905 Edith Dawson published a small book entitled ''A Little Book on Art: Enamel''. During her career Dawson also exhibited works with both the New English Art Club and the Royal Society of British Artists.<ref name="HTurnbull">{{cite book|author= Harry Turnbull|publisher= Thornton Gallery|year=1976|title=Artists of Yorkshire A Short Dictionary}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dawson, Edith}} Category:1862 births Category:1929 deaths Category:19th-century English women artists Category:20th-century English women artists Category:19th-century enamellers Category:20th-century enamellers Category:Artists from the London Borough of Croydon Category:People from Croydon Category:Arts and Crafts movement artists Category:British jewellery designers Category:English enamellers Category:Women enamellers Category:British women jewellers