Born in North Holland, Netherlands, to B F Van Rijn and Hermina Petersen, Johanna van Ryn (1915-1984) was a renowned New York designer in the mid-1940s. She worked for A. J. Van Dugteren & Sons Inc., New York, whose boutique had a full collection of jewelry bearing the Johanna van Ryn label. The firm registered the rights to the Johanna van Ryn brand in March 1945.

However, by 1946, her original modernist and avant-garde jewelry, primarily sets of necklaces, bracelets, and earrings, had appeared in other top New York boutiques. Among them was Wexford Antiques Gifts, 846 Lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y.
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The history of Renoir of California jewelry company located at 6725 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, began in 1942. Its founder was Jerry Felsentein (1917 – 1996), better known as Jerry Fels.

Born in Brooklyn, American costume jewelry designer Jerry Fels studied fine art in New York, in Art Students’ League and National Academy of Design. Jerry Fels began his career as a freelance designer for New York stores. He moved to California in 1942, where he, in partnership with his brother-in-law Curt Freiler and Nat Zausner, established “Renoir of Hollywood”.
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Clara Bark Welles (1868–1965) was one of the most influential female silversmiths not only in Chicago, Illinois, but in the United States. Thirty-two-year-old Welles founded her shop after graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in September 1900. Within five years, her Kalo studio included more than twenty artisans, most of whom were of Scandinavian descent.

According to Kalo trademark registration document, her workshop produced a wide range of goods using silver. In particular, tableware and cutlery, toiletries and smoking accessories, picture frames, hair ornaments, dog collars, and more. Jewelry included bracelets, brooches, pins, buttons, chains, crosses, medallions, necklaces, rings, and clasps.
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A biologist by training, Phyllis Aldridge Woods (b. 1940) studied physiology and anatomy at Indiana University, and even wrote scientific articles in the early 1960s. However, her love of art, design, and jewelry influenced her subsequent career, to which she devoted her life.

Phyllis Woods and her husband, artist and poet George Welch (b. 1943), opened their studio in Tuscon, Arizona in the early 1970s. In addition to working in the studio, the artists traveled widely, becoming inspired by the ethnic art of West Africa and Morocco. Self-taught jeweler Phyllis Woods translated her impressions into jewelry, which today has become highly collectible.
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A self-taught jeweler and World War I veteran, Stuart Nelson Nye (1884-1962) founded his business in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1933. He had previously worked as a carpenter and had a hobby of tinkering with homemade tools and silver sheets to create jewelry with designs inspired by the leaves and flowers of his native North Carolina mountains.

This hobby later grew into a thriving business producing handmade silver jewelry. The main designs of his work included maple, oak, willow and galax leaves, dogwood flowers, pansies and lilies. Nye made only his own original designs and refused to speed up production by introducing machines.
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Danish jewelry designer and silversmith Arne Johansen (1927 – 2004) studied jewellery making with goldsmith Henry Andersen for three years. During his training, he demonstrated excellent craftsmanship and design talent. As a result, upon completing his studies in January 1951, he received the silver medal for his diploma work from the Danish Craftsmen’s Association.

He began his career as a jeweller at the renowned Danish company A. Dragsted. Founded in Bredgade (Copenhagen) in 1854, the company was known as the court jeweller and court goldsmith.
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The iconic Norwegian jewelry brand, David Andersen is also the name of the founder of a silver manufacturing company known since 1876. Andersen studied jewelry making with a well-known Norwegian goldsmith Jacob Ulrich Holfeldt Tostrup (1806 – 1890).

The earliest mention of David Andersen (1843 – 1901) in the Jewelers’ Circular dates back to June 21, 1893. According to the publication, the most conspicuous feature of his jewelry was in the line of transparent enamels. Andersen had in his display great many silver articles decorated in remarkably beautiful vari-colored plique-a-jour enamels.
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