Hanauer Stadtgoldschmied Prize 2006

Nomination of the 2nd city goldsmith of Hanau.

No question, Hanau´s musician Paul Hindemith and the tale-writers Brothers Grimm are world-wide famous. Therefore, the city of Hanau awards regularly prizes in the field of music and literature. Yet also goldsmithing has a long tradition in Hanau and has given Hanau the nickname “city of precious jewellery.”

In 2004, Hanau has originated the 1. Hanauer Stadtgoldschmied. The title is awarded to a gold- or silversmith who is invited to live six weeks in Hanau. He or she gets the possibility to work in a studio of the Staatliche Zeichenakademie Hanau, the goldsmiths´ school of Hanau, during summer holidays. The visit ends with a presentation of the artist’s work and a lecture at the German Goldsmiths´ House Hanau, museum for (contemporary) jewellery and silver-smith art. The ambition of the award is to strengthen the arts and crafts of gold- and silversmithing and to revive the jewellery tradition in the city.

Two years ago, the gold- and silversmith Rudolf Bott from Neuburg an der Donau, an internationally recognized artist, was elected as the first city goldsmith of Hanau. Bott feels bound to Hanau since many years, last but not least because of his apprenticeship at the Staatliche Zei-chenakademie.

This year, the new 2. Hanauer Stadtgoldschmied was announced by the jury - Rudolf Bott (gold- and silversmith), Rolf Frodl (town councillor) Gabrielle Jahns-Duttenhöfer (Director of the Staatliche Zeichenakademie Hanau), Günter Kasper (guild master), Richard Schaffer-Hartmann (department manager of the Hanau-museums) and Dr. Christianne Weber-Stöber, managing director of the Goldsmiths´ Association/director of the German Goldsmiths´ House). They agreed to invite a young, maybe unknown artist to Hanau. Of one voice the jury decided in favour of the Japanese artist Jiro Kamata.

Jiro Kamata descends from a jewellery family; he was born in Hirosaki, Japan. Although he views quite sceptically gems and precious metals, he went through training as a goldsmith at the Yamanashi Institute of Gemmology and Jewellery Art. His master there had once trained in Pforzheim, Germany and so Jiro Kamata got as well the idea to go to Germany and to study at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Pforzheim. In 2000, he continued his study at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich. He graduated this year, still living and working in Munich.

Jiro Kamata has taken part in international exhibitions of museums and galleries; he has been honoured by several European and Japanese prizes. His work is already represented in impor-tant collections in Nijmegen, Tokyo, Basel and Philadelphia.
The jewellery of Kamata is available for acquisition through the Oona gallery in Berlin (www.oona-gallerie.de).

Jiro Kamata starts his visit to Hanau in summer 2007. The German Goldsmith House will introduce the artist’s work in a single exhibition.