Robert Ebendorf

Robert William Ebendorf (born September 30, 1938) 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.

Biography Born on September 30, 1938, in Topeka, Kansas, the son of Dr. Harry Ebendorf and Nomah Large, a homemaker. Starting at a young age, his father would take him to his paternal grandparent's tailor shop. There he would watch them work together, creating articles of clothing. He credits the time spent there, and his mother, with helping create his sensitivity to the world around him and leading him to choose a career in art. He was influenced by the jewelry designed by Irena Brynner and by Scandinavian art.

From 1967 until 1971, Ebendorf taught at the University of Georgia. Starting in 1970, Ebendorf joined Kurt Matzdorf in the metals department at State University of New York at New Paltz (SUNY New Paltz), where he remained until 1988.

In 1999, he was named the Carol Grotnes Belk Distinguished Professor of Art at the East Carolina University School of Art and Design. He was one of the founding members of the Society of North American Goldsmiths in 1970, and is an inductee of the National Metalsmiths Hall of Fame.

In addition to the Fulbright Scholarship and Louis Comfort Tiffany Grant, Ebendorf has received a National Endowment for the Arts Award, and American Crafts Council Award, In 2014, Ebendorf was given the Society of North American Goldsmith's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has four, the Metropolitan Museum has five, the Asheville Art Museum has two, and the Museum of Arts and Design has two Ebendorf pieces in their permanent collections.