Kobi Bosshard undertook a five-year apprenticeship in Zurich with jewellery designer and craftsman Meinrad Burch-Korrodi, and studied at the Zurich School of Applied Arts.
12 Facts About Kobi Bosshard
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Kobi Bosshard worked briefly in a Wellington jewellery shop owned by a fellow Swiss jeweller after arriving in New Zealand, but found the work being done in the shop conservative and left after a brief time.
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Kobi Bosshard became a mountain guide, then returned to full-time jewellery making in 1966.
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Kobi Bosshard has exhibited in a number of exhibition throughout New Zealand, and sells his work regularly through craft and jewellers' shops.
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Kobi Bosshard feels that, as a craft jeweller, he has considerable advantage over commercial jewellers, in that he is independent, and can design and work where and when he pleases, developing and following out his own idea, without the pressures of a mass market.
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In 1970 Kobi Bosshard's work was included in Silver, Gold, Greenstone at New Vision Gallery in Auckland, the first substantial exhibition of contemporary jewellery in New Zealand.
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Kobi Bosshard has played an important role as a teacher of younger jewellers, including Peter McKay, Vicki Mason and Lisa Walker.
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Kobi Bosshard imbued me with a sense of the history of working with metal.
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In September 1983 Kobi Bosshard established Fluxus Contemporary Jewellery, a jewellery workshop and gallery, with Stephen Mulqueen in Dunedin; they were shortly joined by jeweller Georg Beer.
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Kobi Bosshard was a member of the selection panel for the influential 1988 Bone Stone Shell exhibition of contemporary New Zealand jewellery.
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In 2012 Kobi Bosshard was recognised as a Master of Craft by Objectspace, an honour accompanied by a major touring retrospective exhibition and publication.
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Kobi Bosshard's work is held in the Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and The Dowse Art Museum.