5 Goldschmiede

Artist list

Giampaolo Babetto, Manfred Bischoff, Falko Marx, Bruce Metcalf, Robert Smit

Giampaolo Babetto's work as a jewelry maker and metalsmith has been exhibited and praised around the world from Rome to Tokyo. After studying at the P. Selvatico Art Institute in Padua, Babetto would study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. In 1969 Babetto returned to the P. Selvatico Art Institute, but as a teacher rather than a student. At this time he would meet Ton Berends, director of the Galerie Nouvelles Images in The Hague, and Alberto Carrain of the Galleria Adelphi in Padua, with both of whom he would have long collaborations and friendships. He has been honored with two Herbert Hoffmann Awards at the Schmuckschau, Munich; the Grand Prix, Japan Jewelry Design Association, Tokyo; and the Gold Medal from the State of Bavaria; among others. He has taught and been a visiting lecturer at Rietveld Akademie in Amsterdam; Fachhochschule in Düsseldorf; the University of San Diego, Rhode Island School of Design and the Summer Academy Salzburg among others. Giampaolo Babetto's work is in the collection of major museums around the world. 


Manfred Bischoff is an artist and a superb craftsman. In our Post-Industrial Age of Reproduction and Ready Made Art he is a goldsmith, a hero who is superbly gifted in making work with his hands. He will coax an olive leaf into a donkey's ear or take a twig of coral and make it symbolize anything. These jewels are small highly lyrical and sensual works of art. And the best thing is that you can wear them!
Born in 1947, Bischoff worked in Munich and Berlin before moving to Tuscany, where he now resides. He has been the recipient of many awards, including the Françoise van den Bosch Prize, Amsterdam, the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, Munich, and a scholarship for study in Florence. For more than 20 years, Bischoff has created sculpture that can be found in collections around the world, including the Danner-Stiftung Collection, Munich, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Power House Museum, Sydney, and private collections throughout Europe and the United States. 


Bruce Metcalf received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Syracuse University and a Master of Fine Arts from the Tyler School of Art. Mr. Metcalf has received crafts fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities. Over 27 solo exhibitions of his work have been mounted at venues including Jewelers Work Gallery, Washington; Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley, California; and Helen Drutt Gallery, Philadelphia. His work has been included in major exhibitions at the American Craft Museum, New York; Kunsthal Rotterdam, Netherlands; Museum of Contemporary Art, Het Kruithaus, s'Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands; Akron Art Museum, Ohio; Dayton Art Institute, Ohio; Renwick Galleryof the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; The Galleries at Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia; and the Galeria Universiteria Artistos, Mexico City. Mr. Metcalf also contributes art criticism to American Craft, Metalsmith, Studio Potter, Crafts Australia, and Design (a Korean arts magazine). He is currently a senior lecturer at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.


Robert Smit’s jewellery acknowledges gold’s tradition as a medium of exchange and its historical role in Dutch prosperity, but he subverts these references with an approach to design and surface that links his work to the country’s more recent history of experimental design and art. The organisation of colour fields and the constructivist flavour of Smit’s work has references to the japonisme of Van Gogh, the rationalist abstractions of Mondrian, and the artists and designers of De Stijl. The influence of the COBRA art movement of the 1950s is also evident in his gestural use of saturated colour.


Falko Marx is with his choice of the material he uses very inventive. He combinates discovered pices with valuable material as gold and precious stones.
He reaches an amazing richment in the expression and result of the single workpice. Falko Marx had a large number of single- and paticipations of exhibitions in Europe and the USA . His younger exhibitions were 2002 in Zürich,CH and 2004 Kunst Meran, Italy. He is owner of the Herbert Hoffmann Preis, Munich. His work is in many collections as: Schmuckmuseum Pforzheim, Dannerstiftung München, the Pinakothek der Moderne, München, and the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, USA.