Malcolm Appleby MBE awarded the President’s Medal of the British Art Medal Society
Congratulations to Malcolm Appleby MBE as he is awarded the President’s Medal of the British Art Medals Society, which is presented annually to an individual or organisation who has made “a significant contribution to the understanding, appreciation and encouragement of the art of the medal.” The President's Medal is the Society's highest honour presented this year by Philip Attwood on behalf of BAMS at the Goldsmiths’ Centre. Malcolm is an outstanding art medallist alongside his other extraordinary achievements. He trained at the Central School and at the Royal College. Originally a part-time apprentice to John Wilkes, gunsmith, he learnt the formal art of engraved gun decoration, swiftly becoming a renowned artist engraver and carver of silver, gold, platinum, steel, iron and bronze. In addition to gun engraving, he is well-known for the immediately recognisable work in jewellery, silversmithing and printmaking as well as art medals which flow from his studio workshop in Scotland. His work is well-represented in the Goldsmiths’ Company Collection and Archive.
Philip Attwood presenting Malcolm Appleby with the President’s Medal of the British Art Medals Society at the Goldsmiths’ Centre, photograph by Julia Skilton
His connection with the Goldsmiths’ Company Collection goes back to 1969 when we acquired a steel canister, gold-fired using a technique Malcolm had devised while a student at the RCA. A Company prize-winning medallist from 1968, he was in at the beginning of the art medal collection, which kick-started into being with the innovative Medals Today exhibition in 1973. Curator and Art Director Graham Hughes worked with the Royal Mint to put on an international exhibition at Goldsmiths’ Hall of contemporary medals including pieces by artists new to this fascinating artform: John Piper, David Clarke, Patrick Hughes and Jacqueline Stieger. Six of Malcolm’s gold medals were displayed.
One of them was ‘Owl’, a typically vigorous uniface design, in this case reminiscent of ancient Greek coins. Appleby had been working on a heraldic owl design for another project before turning to this medal of a Tawny owl, which he calls ‘Owl Proudfoot Brown’. Appleby had been encouraged by Frank Morell of Collinwood of Conduit Street to cut dies, and ‘Owl’ was engraved on his own initiative. Graham Hughes had the gold example struck by the Royal Mint as an exercise in striking in high relief.
‘Owl Proudfoot Brown’, 18ct gold struck medal, Malcolm Appleby, 1973, photography by Clarissa Bruce
At the time, Hughes had just been appointed Design Director at the Royal Mint, working for Harold Glover as the Master of the Mint. It was Hughes’s idea that the Mint should strike the medal in 18 carat gold from the artist’s hand-engraved die, creating an excellent impression. Hughes noted that the owl “is something of an obsession with this artist.” Appleby adds that “a rat peeks out of the owl’s crop. You have to look closely.”
The exhibition was the beginning not only of our thriving medal collection but of the Company’s continued involvement in promoting this contemporary artform; an achievement which was acknowledged by the award of the BAMS President’s Medal to the Company in 2022. That is another link to share with Malcolm as he receives this distinction in 2025. Looking back to Medals Today, for which he also made two souvenir pieces, [‘Human Butterfly’ and ‘Birds of Destiny’] he remembers it as “a great boost for medal artists...it was Graham Hughes’s vision of goldsmiths that propelled the art forward.”
Top: Birds of Destiny, Bottom: Human Butterfly, photography by Clarissa Bruce