Paul Annear

Paul Geoffrey Annear (17 October 1947 in Wellington, New Zealand – 24 April 2016 in Phnom Penh) was a New Zealand contemporary jeweller.

Annear was born to a Pākehā family, but was fascinated by carved adzes, tiki, and mere from an early age. He left home in 1966 and began making jewellery. As a jeweller, Annear was self-taught, like many of his contemporaries. He set up a carving studio in Auckland in a corrugated-iron shed with two washing-machine engines powering a grinder and saw, and began carving adzes. The works Annear made for Bone Stone Shell were all made of pounamu: he noted in the exhibition catalogue that 'Jade is the material that dominates my work at this time'. He described his work from this time as being inspired by an ‘imagined neolithic culture’ rather than specifically Māori forms: the strong geometric shapes of the pieces are derived from arrowheads, adzes and other implements.

In 1991 Annear was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship to study ancient jade carvings in Asia, Europe, and North America. From 1991 to 1996 he was a member of the contemporary jewellers collective, the Fingers group. His work was included in the 1993 survey of New Zealand jewellery Open Heart, curated by Elena Gee for The Dowse Art Museum. He also experimented with cast glass as a medium, with music and with animation, and in 2003 published The Artist – a colouring book for adults.

Annear's work is held in a number of New Zealand public collections, including Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Dowse Art Museum

Further information

John Daley portraits of Paul Annear, black and white photographs, c.1987. Collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Bone Stone Shell exhibition catalogue Mark Amery, Jewellery that speaks our way, The DominionPost, 30 October 2013. Review of the 25th anniversary re-staging of the Bone Stone Shell exhibition.