Helen Shirk

Last updated
Helen Shirk
Born1942 (age 8182)
Education Skidmore College, Indiana University Bloomington
Known forjewelry designer and teacher

Helen Shirk (born 1942, Buffalo New York) is an American jewelry designer. She attended Skidmore College and Indiana University Bloomington as well as studying at the Kunsthaandvaerkerskolen in Copenhagen on a Fulbright Scholarship. [1] She taught jewelry and metalwork at San Diego State University from 1975 to 2010, retiring as Professor of Art Emeritus. [2]

Her work is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, [3] the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, [4] the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, [5] and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. [6]

In 1999 Shirk became a Fellow of the American Craft Council. [7] In 2017 she received the lifetime achievement award from Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG). [2]

Related Research Articles

Olaf Skoogfors was an artist, metalsmith and educator until his death in 1975, at the age of 45.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Paley</span> American modernist metal sculptor

Albert Paley is an American modernist metal sculptor. Initially starting out as a jeweler, Paley has become one of the most distinguished and influential metalsmiths in the world. Within each of his works, three foundational elements stay true: the natural environment, the built environment, and the human presence. Paley is the first metal sculptor to have received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects. He lives and works in Rochester, New York with his wife, Frances.

Arline Fisch is an American artist and educator. She is known for her work as a metalsmith and jeweler, pioneering the use of textile processes from crochet, knitting, plaiting, and weaving in her work in metal. She developed groundbreaking techniques for incorporating metal wire and other materials into her jewelry.

Robert William Ebendorf is an American metalsmith and jeweler, known for craft, art and studio jewelry, often using found objects. In 2003–2004, the Smithsonian American Art Museum organized an exhibition of 95 pieces, titled The Jewelry of Robert Ebendorf: A Retrospective of Forty Years.

Stanley Lechtzin is an American artist, jeweler, metalsmith and educator. He is noted for his work in electroforming and computer aided design (CAD) and computer aided manufacture (CAM). He has taught at Temple University in the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, from 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Lee Hu</span> American artist, goldsmith and educator

Mary Lee Hu is an American artist, goldsmith, and college level educator known for using textile techniques to create intricate woven wire jewelry.

Claire Van Vliet is an artist, illustrator, printmaker, and typographer who founded Janus Press in San Diego, California in 1955. She received a MacArthur Genius Grant in 1989. She is known for her innovative use of dyed paper pulp to create illustrations. She is also known for her long career in artist's books. She was teaching at the museum school in Philadelphia in 1961

<span class="mw-page-title-main">L. Brent Kington</span>

L. Brent Kington was an art educator and visual artist who worked in blacksmithing and sculpture. Kington was a product of the studio craft movement in jewelry and hollowware. In 1969 he served as the first president of the Society of North American Goldsmiths. He is frequently hailed as the man responsible for the blacksmithing revival which took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Fenster</span> American metalsmith

Fred Fenster is a metalsmith and professor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin at Madison where he taught art and education. He is particularly known for his work in pewter, influencing generations of metalsmiths. Fenster was named a Fellow of the American Craft Council in 1995.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lois Betteridge</span> Canadian silversmith and goldsmith (1928–2020)

Lois Etherington Betteridge was a Canadian silversmith, goldsmith, designer and educator, and a major figure in the Canadian studio craft movement. Betteridge entered Canadian silversmithing in the 1950s, at a time when the field was dominated by male artists and designers, many of them emigrés from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. In fact, Betteridge was the first Canadian silversmith to attain international stature in the post-war studio craft movement.

Harriete Estel Berman is an American artist known for her sculptures and jewelry made from post-consumer, recycled household goods, and her satirical explorations of women's roles in society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eleanor Moty</span> American metalsmith and jewelry artist (born 1945)

Eleanor Moty, is an American metalsmith and jewelry artist. Her experimentation with industrial processes, such as photoetching and electroforming, was revolutionary in the field of American art jewelry in the 1960s and 1970s.

Myra Mimlitsch-Gray is an American metalsmith, artist, critic, and educator living and working in Stone Ridge, New York. Mimlitsch-Gray's work has been shown nationally at such venues as the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Museum of the City of New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and Museum of Arts and Design. Her work has shown internationally at such venues as the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Stadtisches Museum Gottingen, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and is held in public and private collections in the U.S, Europe, and Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alma Eikerman</span> American jeweler and metalsmith (1908–1995)

Alma Rosalie Eikerman was an American metalsmith, silversmith, and jewelry designer who was instrumental in building the metals program at Indiana University, of which she retired Distinguished Professor Emeritus. She was a founding member of the Society of North American Goldsmiths and studied under several internationally renowned metalsmiths, such as Karl Gustav Hansen. Eikerman's work has appeared in over 200 exhibitions, including Objects: USA at the Smithsonian Institution.

Linda Threadgill is an American artist whose primary emphasis is metalsmithing. Her metal work is inspired by forms of nature and the interpretations she gleans from the intricate patterns it presents. She explores the foundation of nature to allude to nature and transform it into re-imagined, stylized plants forms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marjorie Schick</span> American jewelry

Marjorie Schick was an innovative American jewelry artist and academic who taught art for 50 years. Approaching sculptural creations, her avant-garde pieces have been widely collected. Her works form part of the permanent collections of many of the world's leading art museums, including the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia; the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City; the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, Japan; the Philadelphia Museum of Art in Pennsylvania; and the Victoria and Albert Museum of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jan Yager</span> American artist (born 1951)

Jan Yager is an American artist who makes mixed media jewelry. She draws inspiration from both the natural world and the lived-in human environment of her neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, emphasizing that art is a reflection of both time and place. She has incorporated rocks, bullet casings, and crack cocaine vials into her works, and finds beauty in the resilience of urban plants that some would consider weeds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Merry Renk</span> American jewelry designer (1921-2012)

Merry Renk, also known as Merry Renk-Curtis, was an American jewelry designer, metalsmith, sculptor and painter. In 1951, she helped to found the Metal Arts Guild (MAG), and served as its president in 1954.

Kurt J. Matzdorf, also known as Kurtheinz J. Matzdorf, was a German-born American jewelry designer, metalsmith and an educator. He was Professor Emeritus at State University of New York at New Paltz and he founded the metals department. Matzdorf was known for his religious objects in metal.

Sharon Church was an American studio jeweler, metalsmith, and educator. She is a professor emerita of the University of the Arts (Philadelphia) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 2012, Church was elected a Fellow of the American Craft Council (ACC). In 2018, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of North American Goldsmiths.

References

  1. "Inside the Collection: Helen Shirk and #5WomenArtists". Metal Museum. 25 March 2020. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  2. 1 2 Tuazon, Guilda (12 April 2017). "2017 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Helen Shirk". Society of North American Goldsmiths. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  3. "Helen Shirk". LACMA Collections. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  4. "Works | Helen Shirk". The MFAH Collections. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  5. "Works – Helen Shirk". The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  6. "Bracelet". Philadelphia Museum of Art. Retrieved 29 July 2023.
  7. "College of Fellows". American Craft Council. Retrieved 29 July 2023.