Kobi Bosshard

Kobi Bosshard (born 1939 in Uster, Switzerland) is a Swiss-born New Zealand jeweller. Bosshard was one of a number of European-trained jewellers who came to New Zealand in the 1960s and transformed contemporary jewellery in the country; others include Jens Hoyer Hansen, Tanya Ashken and Gunter Taemmler.

Training in Switzerland

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.

Career in New Zealand

Bosshard moved to New Zealand in 1961.

He 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. He became a mountain guide, then returned to full-time jewellery making in 1966.

Art historian Peter Cape wrote in a 1969 survey of craft in New Zealand:

Kobi Bosshard has exhibited in a number of exhibition throughout New Zealand, and sells his work regularly through craft and jewellers' shops. He 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. In the same interview he said:

I have to make a piece of jewellery before I know what it looks like. My hands and material know what they are doing: the jewellery has to feel right or it's not successful. I try not to let my mind get in the way. I don't want to end up thinking I am smart and clever and using tricks. Reviewing the exhibition Douglas Standring wrote 'Kobi Bosshard has long been regarded as one of our best jewellery-makers, but this exhibition at the Manawatu Art Gallery confirms his position amongst the still small group of local craftsmen and women who are making more than craft'. Martha Moseth, writing in Craft New Zealand in 1985, stated

When goldsmiths Kobi Bosshard and Stephen Mulqueen opened Fluxus in September 1983 they were prepared for a few risks including a slow start and indeterminate debt. They have been surprised at the Gallery's success. On a 'bad' afternoon there are at least five potential customers and on a good day, thirty to forty. In its first eight months the Gallery has totalled over 200 sales and the future looks good. In 1996 he curated the second New Zealand Jewellery Biennial, titled Same But Different, at The Dowse Art Museum.

2017 documentary 'Kobi'

A documentary about Bosshard's life and work, 'Kobi', will premiere at the 2017 New Zealand International Film Festival in July 2017. The film is produced by Torchlight Films and directed by Bosshard's daughter, film maker Andrea Bosshard.