Kurt Jobst, Goldsmith and Silversmith

The Grove's Dictionary of Art by Jane Turner - page 120

It all started with a question on a web forum: someone had acquired a bangle crafted by Kurt Jobst and wanted to know some basic information about the artist.

It was the first time I heard that name: the person who had put the question knew only that Kurt Jobst had lived in South Africa and wanted firstly to find out whether he was still alive. It seemed that there was a book about his art, but nobody knew where to find it: no info about the title or the author.

I decided to try a search on the web, by mere curiosity, with no idea on the outcome.

The first information I found was that Kurt Jobst had passed away in 1971.

It was a catalog edited by the Lilly Library (the rare books, manuscripts, and special collections library of the Indiana University). The catalog referenced all papers kept by the library that were related to Nadine Gordimer, the South African author, Nobel Prize laureate: early writings, articles, book reviews, novels, scripts, short stories, short story collections, speeches, as well as simple annotations. All organized in boxes and folders.

Well, in box 10/folder 8 there was an annotation on Kurt Jobst:

Kurt Jobst [address]. Given by Reinhold Cassirer at the cremation of Kurt Jobst, May 7, 1971. Final version of address; photocopy of clipping, titled: He gave Jo'burg Some Style, A Personal Tribute by Nadine Gordimer; photocopy of longer version used as foreword for book on Jobst's work, published 1977.

Looking for the traces of a person whom I was wandering whether still alive, it was kind of shocking to find the first information telling me about his cremation in 1971! At least with a fine word about him, he gave Jo'sburg some style.

A sentence telling me not only about Kurt Jobst, but also about Nadine Gordimer! It was actually the first sentence coined by her that I was coming upon: an elegant and generous sentence telling in two words a lot about the man (who had given a whole city some style), proving in the same time a subtle empathy for the burg she was living in; that Jo'burg was such a great way to say a lot about Johannesburg!

But: was that Kurt Jobst the personage I was looking for? To find the answer I had to look for that book printed in 1979, with the foreword by Nadine Gordimer.

I found the book on the web: another catalog, this time the one of Clarke's Bookshop:

23. [Jobst (Kurt)] KURT JOBST, goldsmith and silversmith, art metal
worker, 47pp., 4to., b/w & colour illus., hardback, d.w.,
Johannesburg, 1979. R750
Includes An appreciation of Kurt Jobst by Nadine Gordimer.

Now I was sure that it was the same person! Only this finding grew my appetite to find more about Kurt Jobst. So far I knew only some very basic facts: a jeweler who had lived in Johannesburg, died in 1971, a book about him printed in 1979; Nadine Gordimer knew him and wrote an introduction to the book.

Looking at the bookshop web address, I was initially confused: the termination was .ZA, I hadn't known that this was the abbreviation for South Africa (from Dutch: Zuid Afrika).

Clarke's Bookshop was located in Cape Town, and the price of the book was kind of astronomical, not to mention shipping costs, so there was no question to order it from there. I looked for the book on the Amazon: it was out of stock, with a not too encouraging note (currently unavailable; we don't know when or if this item will be back in stock).

So I went on by searching with the Google engine for books. What I found was fascinating: the whole life of Kurt Jobst was unfurling in front of my eyes (to be right, only in general aspects, but anyway).

Kurt Jobst was originary from Austria. He was born in 1905 and learned the gold and silver craft in his native country. Two books were mentioning his Austrian background:

1. The Grove Dictionary of Art (Jane Turner editor), at page 120: foremost among them was Kurt Jobst (1905-71), who had served his apprenticeship under Karl Berthold, a master goldsmith, in the town of Hanau-am-Main, where he also attended the Goldsmith Academy...
2. The Fleuron. A Journal of Typography (Stanley Morison, Olivier Simon editors), at page 33: two pupils of his calligraphy class, Kurt Jobst and Berthold Wolpe, have already proved to be collaborators of great ability. In the course of the last year a number of articles worked in metal were produced, some of which I should like to mention. A receptacle for the Sacred Host made of lead, ornamented by an...

Another book was briefly mentioning him as an Austrian jeweler educated under the influence of the Bauhaus School.

He quit Austria after the Anschluss. Here our now well known acquaintance Nadine Gordimer comes to our help: Conversations with Nadine Gordimer (by Nadine Gordimer, Nancy Topping Bazin, Marilyn Dallman Seymour), at page 251; here you go: there was Kurt Jobst, a jeweller, who wasn't a Jew or a leftist but had quit Austria because of the Nazis; and it goes on: he hadn't ever had any black friends. He was a middle-aged man and let part of his house to an English friend...

And finally we come again on the book about him, printed in 1979: Kurt Jobst. Goldsmith and Silversmith. Art Metal Worker (Dieter and Arno Jobst authors), with the introduction by Nadine Gordimer.

How was his life in South Africa? He did not have black friends, he had at least an English friend, he was known and appreciated by Nadine Gordimer, presumably by other members of the intelectual and artistic elite there. Was he involved in the political tumult there? Was he rather a shy person, living exclusivley in his golden and silver universe? I do not know the answer.

But what I know about him says to me a lot: he gave Jo'burg some style.



(Avangarda 20)

(Nadine Gordimer)