Jürgen Eickhoff

Bio

As a jewelry designer, teacher, and gallerist, Jürgen Eickhoff's (1953 – 2026) multifaceted career reflects a lifelong dialogue between material, form, and meaning.

Eickhoff earned a degree in geology in Munich in 1980, before going on to study at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, where he refined his artistic language and developed a distinct visual sensibility. In November 1981, together with jewelry designer Marianne Schliwinski, he founded Galerie Spektrum in Munich, a gallery that would shape the field of contemporary jewelry. According to him, the gallery originally covered a broader range, including glass, ceramics, and paper works, before the founders decided within its first year to concentrate solely on what they considered the most avant-garde of contemporary art, jewelry. The gallery now represents around 25 artists, showing not only their jewelry but also their drawings, sculptures, objects, and photography, so as to present the full range of each artist's practice. Spektrum has likewise built a substantial publishing arm over the years, having produced more than 50 exhibition catalogues.

Alongside his gallery work, Eickhoff has taught and lectured at several institutions, notably the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hildesheim, where he held a teaching post from 2005 to 2006. He and Marianne Schliwinski have also contributed significantly to public collection-building in Germany, notably through donations and curatorial partnerships with the Danner-Stiftung and Die Neue Sammlung in Munich.

In 2012, Eickhoff curated Transit, a touring exhibition of contemporary jewelry from Israel shown at several venues across Germany. Galerie Spektrum relocated to Karlsruhe in 2018, where it continues to operate today.

As a maker, his pieces are held in several public collections, said to include the Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe, the Dallas Museum of Art, Die Neue Sammlung in Munich, the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Berlin, the Landesmuseum Württemberg in Stuttgart, the Münchner Stadtmuseum, and Galerie Spektrum itself.
 

Statement

Jürgen Eickhoff's own training in geology grounded his engagement with jewelry in a longstanding interest in material and form. Alongside his work as a gallerist, his own jewelry, brooches, rings, necklaces, and earrings made from materials such as oxidized silver, plastic, and synthetic stones reflect the same sensibility he brings to Spektrum's program, a preference for considered, material-driven work over passing trends.

The approach of the gallery has always been shaped by a refusal to follow trends or fashions, favoring instead a steady, independent identity built up over four decades. That identity has never been static; it has developed through a continuous exchange between the gallery and the artists it represents, each shaping the other's direction over time. Spektrum's program reflects this; artists are encouraged to think beyond the single object, considering how a piece relates to the body, the space it is shown in, and the wider context of contemporary jewelry as a field. This has often resulted in exhibitions where installation itself becomes part of the work, rather than a simple backdrop for individual pieces.