Lifetime Achievement

2022 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Jamie Bennett

The SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award Committee has selected Jamie Bennett, Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York, New Paltz, as the recipient of the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award. Johnathan Wahl, one of the many colleagues who nominated Bennett, wrote,…

2020/2021 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Eleanor Moty

SNAG’s 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient is Eleanor Moty. Moty’s contribution to our field as a highly regarded artist, as a teacher, and as a mentor has been exemplary and worthy of SNAG’s highest honor.

2019 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, James Wallace

SNAG’s 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient is James Wallace. The 2019 SNAG conference, to be held in Chicago, will be dedicated to James. He will be given his award at the opening of the conference on May 23rd. Please join us in congratulating him.

2004 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Imogene “Tex” Gieling

In 2004, Tex Gieling received SNAG’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Tex’s work can currently be seen in the exhibition “Tex Gieling: Sixty Years” curated by Elizabeth Shypertt at the Museum of Craft of Design in San Francisco.

2018 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Sharon Church

SNAG is pleased to announce that the 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient is Sharon Church. She will be given her award at the opening of SNAG’s 2018 MADE conference in Portland, Oregon on Thursday, May 24.

2017 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Helen Shirk

SNAG is pleased to announce the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Helen Shirk. The SNAG conference will be dedicated to Shirk and she will receive her award during the opening remarks in New Orleans on May 24th.

2016 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Gary Noffke

SNAG is pleased to announce the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Gary Noffke. Known for his versatility, technical prowess, and originality, Noffke is a blacksmith, coppersmith, silversmith, goldsmith, and toolmaker.

2015 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Fred Fenster

Fred Fenster will be recognized for his accomplishments as a metalsmith artist, his influential role as teacher and educator, and his long association with SNAG as a Founding Member at this year’s SNAG conference in Boston.

2014 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Robert Ebendorf

For the past twenty-five years, Robert Ebendorf has been re-purposing existing materials by devising ingenious uses for the discarded and discovering ways to make the used into the new. SNAG is honored to present him with the 2014 Lifetime Achievement Award.

2013 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Gary Griffin

Gary Griffin received the 2013 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award. At the SNAG conference in May, Griffin accepted the beautiful Lifetime Achievement Award argentium silver vessel created by Cynthia Eid. The Lifetime Achievement Award is SNAG’s highest honor and is presented to individuals who have made significant contributions to the field of metalsmithing

2005 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, In Remembrance: John Paul Miller

John Paul Miller, the revered Cleveland Institute of Art professor and one of America’s greatest goldsmiths, passed away this weekend. Miller designed exquisitely crafted brooches, pendants and rings. His work has been compared to those of Rene Lalique and Louis Comfort Tiffany. Miller’s body of work was also collected by notables including the late New York art dealer Lawrence Fleischman and the late Sherman Lee, a a former director of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

2005 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Harry Bober

Harry had a long and very distinguished career. As a scholar he made many important and valued contributions to his field of study. He was certainly a friend of SNAG, understanding the mission of the studio artist/craftsman working in the media of metal. As an advocate of our field he is certainly deserving of the honor of being given the 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society of North American Goldsmiths.

2012 Lifetime Achievement Award, J. Fred Woell

SNAG is proud to present the 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award to J. Fred Woell.

2011 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, L. Brent Kington

Author: Kris A. Patzlaff Society of North American Goldsmiths has awarded the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award to Brent Kington, and honored him at the SNAG conference in Seattle, WA. Kington is being recognized for more than 40 years of significant…

2010 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Lois Etherington Betteridge

Author: Anne Barros For a Canadian woman in the late 1940s to be attracted to silversmithing in the Design Department at the University of Kansas is not very remarkable. But for that same woman, Lois Etherington Betteridge, to have forged…

2009 SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, Stanley Lechtzin

Author: Matthew Hollern Stanley Lechtzin is the 2009 recipient of the SNAG Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Society of North American Goldsmiths, presented at the 40th SNAG conference in Philadelphia. His peers have recognized him as…

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