‘Unique, irreplaceable and brilliantly beautiful’ - Huimin Zhang’s Mammary Gland Brooches
To celebrate International Women’s Day Goldsmiths’ Company Curator, Dr Frances Parton explores the work and skills of goldsmith and gold artist Huimin Zhang. In 2025 her ‘Live Like a Summer Flower-Mammary Gland 03’ brooch was purchased for the Goldsmiths’ Company Collection.
Huimin Zhang, ‘Live Like A Summer Flower - Mammary Gland 03’, 2024, 15 white gold and 22 carat yellow gold, silver and hair, Goldsmiths’ Company Collection. Photography by Richard Valencia.
Huimin Zhang is an outstanding Chinese goldsmith working in the UK. In 2024 she hand-made a remarkable series of brooches, one of which the Goldsmiths’ Company purchased for their Collection at Goldsmiths’ Fair 2025. The emotive ‘Live Like a Summer Flower-Mammary Gland 03’ brooch, made of white gold, yellow gold, silver and human hair, is one of a series of brooches Huimin made after witnessing her closest friend’s experience of breast cancer. Circular in shape and meticulous in form, the brooch is very like a blooming flower; constructed from extraordinarily thin precious metal wire, certain pieces, which resemble the stamens of a flower, are woven with Huimin’s friend’s hair. Huimin describes the moment when her friend showed her her reconstructed breast following surgical treatment for the disease, and how it inspired the series of brooches: “I saw a golden flower blooming on her breast... This work is my expression towards her, to tell her that she is unique, irreplaceable and brilliantly beautiful.”
Huimin is an innovative and highly skilled contemporary goldsmith, an artist specializing in working with metal thread. Born in China in 1981, she developed an intense interest in antique jewellery and traditional metalworking skills, collecting several thousand pieces of antique jewellery and studying ancient and historic crafts including filigree inlay, granulation, engraving and metal thread embroidery. Huimin studied at the Royal College of Art, London, graduating with a master’s degree in Jewellery and Metal in 2023, and now has a studio at Cockpit in Bloomsbury. Her beautiful, painstaking work integrates historic techniques from various cultures with a bold contemporary aesthetic; “My artistic philosophy is that fusing multiple traditional techniques is a way to ensure that traditional crafts survive and continue into the future.” Huimin’s reputation is growing; her work is in the V&A Collection and she shows at international craft exhibitions including Collect. She undertakes every element of her work herself, by hand, from making her own gold alloys (mixing gold with other metals) to producing gold wire of astonishing fineness - the wires in the Mammary Gland brooch are 0.08 in diameter, the thickness of a human hair. Last year she was awarded the QEST Scholarship, funded by the Goldsmiths’ Foundation, where she is currently studying with master Italian goldsmith Giovanni Corvaja to push the creative and technical boundaries of her work even further.
Huimin’s brooch is now a valued part of the Goldsmiths’ Company’s exceptional collection of historic and contemporary silver, medals and jewellery, and features in our forthcoming ‘New Acquisitions 2025’ publication. A pre-eminent jewel by an exceptional maker, Mammary Gland 03 embodies a powerful message: “Since no one controls life’s length, why not live fully and shine brilliantly in the time we have, just like summer flowers?”
Written by Dr Frances Parton | Photography of Huimin by Paul Read