McTeigue & McClelland — The Berkshires Atelier Continuing the Walter McTeigue Tradition
McTeigue & McClelland — The Berkshires Atelier Continuing the Walter McTeigue Tradition
Great Barrington jewellery house known for hand-engraved platinum and Art Deco-inspired design
McTeigue & McClelland is an American jewellery atelier based in Great Barrington in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, founded by Tim McClelland and Walter McTeigue III. The firm continues the tradition of the Walter McTeigue jewellery business, with hand-engraved platinum, Art Deco-inspired design, and bench-craft fabrication forming the core of the atelier's work. The firm operates as a small studio producing custom and limited-production pieces in platinum, gold, and coloured gemstones, with an emphasis on traditional craft techniques applied to contemporary commissions.
The McTeigue family tradition
The McTeigue jewellery tradition traces back to Walter McTeigue Sr., who established a New York atelier in the early twentieth century that worked extensively in the Art Deco idiom for the leading retailers of the period. Walter McTeigue III continued the family tradition through subsequent decades. The current McTeigue & McClelland operation, founded with Tim McClelland, brought the New York-rooted craft tradition to the Berkshires, where the studio occupies a historic building in Great Barrington and operates both as a working atelier and as a retail presence in the small Massachusetts town.
Bench technique and aesthetic
The McTeigue & McClelland aesthetic draws on Art Deco geometric vocabulary — calibré-cut coloured stones, hand-engraved surfaces, milgrain edges, and platinum filigree — applied to wedding rings, engagement rings, and one-off pieces commissioned by clients. The technical work is hand-fabricated rather than CAD-and-cast, with the atelier's bench jewellers producing pieces by traditional silver-and-gold smithing methods adapted to platinum. Hand engraving with traditional gravers and the integration of small calibré-cut sapphires and diamonds into geometric patterns are recurring features of the work.
The studio's pieces have been featured in trade publications including JCK, InStore, and the design press, and have been exhibited periodically in museum and design contexts. The firm sits within the small American studio-jewellery tradition that includes makers such as Linda MacNeil, Wendy Ramshaw, and other practitioners working at the intersection of fine craft and contemporary design.
Position in the contemporary American market
McTeigue & McClelland represents a thread in American studio jewellery that has continued the techniques and aesthetics of the early-twentieth-century New York high-jewellery trade — Tiffany & Co. of the period, Marcus & Co., Black Starr & Frost, and others — at a moment when most large American jewellery production has moved to overseas manufacturing and CAD-driven design. The atelier's small production volumes and direct client relationships allow the technical depth that the older tradition required, applied to commissions from a clientele that values the craft component as much as the design.