IAMWATCH 2026 Singapore, Historic Centenary Exhibition, GEORGE DANIELS 100 “The Genesis of Artisanal Watchmaking”

SINGAPORE – 19 OCTOBER 2026 – Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo and The Hour Glass are proud to announce an unprecedented exhibition of George Daniels’ defining works. Comprising twenty-two exceptional watches, the exhibition will be on view at IAMWATCH 2026, a gathering of makers dedicated to independent artisanal watchmaking, from 12-15 November at The Singapore EDITION.

George Daniels’ Body of Work

Dr. George Daniels CBE (1926-2011) was a British watchmaker widely regarded as one of the most influential of the modern era. A true Renaissance man, he was a self-taught horologist, engineer, and master craftsman who devoted his life to the preservation and advancement of traditional hand-made watchmaking.

In his lifetime, he made twenty-four pocket watches and two wristwatches (the Four-Minute Tourbillon and the Spring Case Tourbillon) before continuing his Millennium and Anniversary series with his apprentice, Roger W. Smith. When you consider that each of his watches took over 2,500 hours to create­—a good part of a year—this number reveals the enormous scale of Daniels’ achievement.

He mastered thirty-two of the thirty-four disciplines required to craft a watch by hand and detailed his work in his seminal book entitled, quite simply, Watchmaking. This book can be found on the shelves of every watchmaker today, many of whom credit George Daniels for fueling their love and knowledge for watchmaking.

The Centenary

This year marks the centenary of George Daniels’ birth, providing a moment to reflect on the life and legacy of this legendary British watchmaker. Today, curiosity in independent artisanal watchmaking has never been stronger, giving us renewed interest in those first intrepid independent watchmakers, but back then, it was a very different time.

A Different Era

The world had lost interest in mechanical watchmaking; everyone was under the spell of the new quartz technology coming out of Japan. To continue on the mechanical path was widely seen as an act of pure madness. Add to this the fact that there were no computer-aided design programmes, CNC machines, or computers to support the process, it was not only a different time in terms of consumer interest, but also in terms of production capabilities.

George Daniels was working in a whole other dimension. 

Luckily, he wasn’t entirely alone in his love for handcrafted watchmaking and was able to survive in the modern age, amid all the technological innovation and industrialisation around him. Roger Smith remembers this time fondly: “He always used to say to me: ‘Roger, the one thing we do here is we make watches, we push forward mechanical timekeeping; that’s our focus. Let everyone else make Christmas baubles, and we’ll do the serious stuff.”

The Mission for Relevance

Continuing the mechanical path did not mean he was repeating the past; he was constantly looking for ways to improve, innovate, and make the mechanical watch relevant again.

His most famous invention was co-axial escapement, the first major escapement development since the lever escapement, invented by Thomas Mudge 200 years earlier.

The co-axial escapement reduced reliance on lubrication and delivered greater long-term precision. Yet George Daniels’ ambition extended beyond the creation of a superior mechanism; he wanted to see his technology adopted by the Swiss watchmaking industry, a goal he ultimately achieved with Omega.

To describe Daniels merely as the inventor of the co-axial escapement would be way too simplistic. His greatest achievement was the complete integration of invention, craftsmanship, and independence. He was simultaneously a watchmaker, engineer, craftsman, designer, problem-solver, and author.

Space Traveller I & II

The George Daniels 100 exhibition marks the first time in history that the Space Travellers I & II are being exhibited together. There are a few moments in the history of watchmaking when two masterpieces can be brought together and, in their presence, reveal the evolution of a singular idea in its fullest form. The reunion of George Daniels’ two Space Traveller watches is one such moment.

Made in 1982, the Space Traveller I and the Space Traveller II occupy a unique position within Daniels’ work. They are not simply two examples of the same model, nor are they conventional variations on a theme. Rather, they represent two closely related stages in the work of one man.

The first is the original expression of an extraordinary idea; the second is its refinement and further development. The first Space Traveller was sold immediately, but Daniels soon regretted letting it go, so rather than simply recreating the original, he used the second piece to take the concept further. He added a chronograph capable of measuring both mean solar and sidereal time, integrating this additional complication into an already exceptionally intricate mechanism. The Space Traveller II became Daniels’ personal watch until his passing in 2011.

The Legacy

Without George Daniels, the independent watchmaking we celebrate today would look profoundly different; in fact, one could argue that it would not even exist. Daniels is the godfather of independent artisanal watchmaking, a creative horological genre that has become one of the most innovative and sought-after today.  He created a bridge between the great tradition of Breguet and the watchmakers of the past, setting the stage for the boom in independent watchmaking that would follow in his wake.

For collectors and scholars, the importance of Daniels’ creations extends far beyond their rarity. They constitute a remarkably concentrated record of one man’s attempt to reconsider virtually every aspect of mechanical watchmaking: its escapements, complications, architecture, finishing, and even the process by which a watch should be made.

To celebrate this legacy, Phillips in Association with Bacs & Russo has created a special documentary that examines the enduring reach of Daniels’ ideas and influence through the eyes of the watchmakers who followed in his footsteps. Filmed in the Isle of Man, England, and Switzerland, and incorporating interviews and archival footage from The George Daniels Educational Trust, this film is a tribute to a foundational figure in the modern independent watchmaking movement.  It will have its avant-premiere during IAMWATCH on 14 November.

Aurel Bacs, Senior Consultant, Phillips Watches shares: “I truly believe that without George Daniels, we would not be here today, in the presence of the next generation’s brightest, cleverest, and most creative horological minds and makers. And so, what better occasion for Phillips to partner with The Hour Glass at IAMWATCH to celebrate, honour, and venerate the centenary of the birth of the greatest watchmaker of the 20th century?”

Michael Tay, Group Managing Director of The Hour Glass adds: “We have long taken the view that George Daniels was the first true independent watchmaker of the twentieth century. His work is so fundamentally central to the current state of independent artisanal watchmaking that one cannot fully appreciate today’s creations without understanding his role in making them possible. He proved that watchmaking could remain personal, inventive, and uncompromising, and in doing so, created a path that generations of watchmakers have since followed. Roger Smith, who apprenticed to him, continues the method. François-Paul Journe has spoken publicly of him as a mentor. He is, undisputedly, the godfather of contemporary independent artisanal watchmaking. 

The George Daniels 100 exhibition we are presenting in Singapore assembles twenty-two of Daniels’ watches in the centenary year of his birth. That is the greater part of everything he completed in a working lifetime, and it allows us to look beyond the individual pieces to the scale of his influence — to see where so much of what we now value came from, and to recognise how profoundly his ideas, his example and his independence continue to shape the culture that IAMWATCH exists to support. Among them are both Space Travellers, apart since 1982 and never once shown together. For most of my career, I had dreamt of seeing them in the same room and that it happens here is both historic  and defining.”

After IAMWATCH, the exhibition will travel to Phillips London in early 2027. For more information and future dates, please visit https://www.phillips.com.

IAMWATCH

PRIVATE VIEW (BY INVITATION ONLY) | Thursday, 12 November 2026, 2.00 p.m. – 5.00 p.m.  
VERNISSAGE (BY INVITATION ONLY) | Thursday, 12 November 2026, 5.00 p.m. – 9.00 p.m.
PUBLIC DAYS | Friday, 13 November – Sunday, 15 November 2026, 11.00 a.m. – 8.00 p.m.
LOCATION: The Singapore EDITION, 38 Cuscaden Road, Singapore 249731