Join us for a lively and intimate afternoon with Helen Drutt, one of the most influential voices in contemporary jewelry. Senior Curator Barbara Paris Gifford will sit down with her longtime friend and colleague for a conversation exploring Drutt’s remarkable career and her four decades of championing contemporary jewelry across the United States and Germany.

Following the conversation, Drutt will be joined by participating artists for a signing of Among Friends: American and German Jewelry Artists from the Helen Williams Drutt Collection, a new publication celebrating her enduring contributions to the field. Published through the collaboration of three Munich institutions—the Danner Foundation, Die Neue Sammlung, and Galerie Handwerk—the book honors Drutt’s 40 years of travel between the United States and Germany, where she has built connections, nurtured artists, and helped advance contemporary jewelry as a vital field of creative practice.

About the Speaker

Helen W. Drutt English is a former gallerist, educator, and curator who is credited with ushering American craft onto the global stage and furthering the modern craft movement. She was a founding member of the Philadelphia Council of Professional Craftsmen in 1967 and opened her eponymous gallery six years later, in 1973, making it one of the first U.S. galleries committed to modern and contemporary craft.

Drutt holds honorary Doctor of Arts degrees from three universities and was named a Museum of Arts and Design Visionary in 1999. She has lectured internationally, written numerous essays, and developed major exhibitions in the field of craft. Her research and extensive library are held as vital resources. She is a former trustee of the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (2010–2021), and a current trustee of the Bard Graduate Center, New York. She has served on the American Board of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Indian and Himalayan Art Advisory Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (1996–2019); and the American Board of the Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum in Athens, Greece. She also serves on the Peter Dormer Lecture Committee in London, England.

Dedicated to bringing American craft abroad, Drutt conceived and organized Gifts from America at The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia (2014), and Beauty and the Unexpected at Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden (2023–2025).